Days of Our X
by ebonbird
Summary: Cowritten with Kassia, this is a tale of death, love, and being an XMan: a kitchensink kind of thing. It features Iceman, Storm, and the woman who's codename keeps achangin', Jean Grey Summers. Please don't leave spoilers in the review box.
1. Prologue

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**Days of Our X - Prologue**  
Authors: ebonbird and Kassia

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PROLOGUE

Jean Grey knew the extensive grounds of the Xavier Institute better than the terrain of her own mind. She'd come of age there. Learned how to use and control her telepathy and telekinesis there. Met Scott Summers there and one fine day, there married him.

In Autumn, when the leaves of the birches and oaks turned all the colors of Jean's hair and more, he died.

Hand outstretched to the striated bark of the tree, Jean stepped out from the shadow overlooking it and the pond. She turned back to survey the remains of her fire. Putting her hand to the small of her back and stretched, her eyes closing. A fighter's muscles, an athlete's muscles, an acrobat's muscles pulled tight too long from her returning countless demanding and awkward embraces, stretched and unknotted as she bent at the waist. Jean opened her sharp seeing eyes, took in the flinty sky. Wondered if the light settling on the frosted leaves pale like age, was really light years old.

Physics supported calculus. Calculus justified physics but she herself had flouted both traveling through the stars.

Scott drew his power from the sun itself. Was she looking at an aspect of him, the light reflecting of the ice-crystals dusting the leaves? Was he here with her on this cold bright day?

Alaska?! She'd said. Alaska?!

I'll keep you warm, he'd said.

Scott was always warm.

Legs folding apart Jean sat down heavily and put the heels of her hands to her eyes. Her chest contracted. Her back dropped to the damp ground. Noise, bent between laughter and tears, shivered the quiet beneath the tree.

Dry sobs, wet laughter.

The tree had a heart burned on it, within the precisely defined curves two sets of initials SS' and JGS'. Groaning Jean hugged herself then clasped her arms beneath her head. She lay quietly. When her lips parted, it was for a smile. "Scotty," she said. Her lips closed. She smiled wider and sat up.

The fire was still smoking. Twisting index and middle finger she dispersed the smoke. She rose and legs almost crossing, clutching her pink cardigan across the elbows, her breath feathering from her nostrils and mouth, she meandered back to the mansion.

Jean knew the grounds of the Xavier estate better than she did her own mind, half of it being gone, but the sight of the boathouse where she and Scott had lived when they first married took her almost by surprise.

They'd made out there as kids.

Made love there as mock-solemn husband and silly sly-boots wife.

Sitting cross-legged on the bed, naked with Scott, hands touching, there wasn't anything better. Like surfacing after having swum miles and years under water, without aid of sight and sound; of tasting sweetness after too many meals of ashes and wasted time. But it was also so natural, as easy as breathing, that she couldn't imagine any other way to be than with Scott, naked, palm to palm, mind to mind. 

There was a sound of thunder. Thick lightning fractured the sky. Wind took tree branches by their tips and tried to wrest them from their trunks.

Ducking her head, Jean pulled a bit of pink cardigan over her hair and dashed to the house.

Unexpectedly, the door was unlocked. Hesitating only a moment, Jean pushed it open. It smelled musty. Sheets covered the furniture. It didn't feel like the place where she and Scott had lived.

The leader of the X-men stood at a window, brooding.

A rush of affection and annoyance ran through Jean's thoughts.

"Ororo." 

The woman's attention snapped to Jean. Scott hid behind his glasses when he was brooding, but with him Jean had been able to slip into his mind to know what he was thinking and feeling.

The woman had picked the right window, though.

"What is it, Ororo?" Jean asked.

"I did not know.

"Did not know until he was gone how important his friendship is -- was to me."

Up at night, late, discussing the X-Men, Scott on his back, ruby quartz glasses on his face; chest brown and tight and broad, it's muscles clearly defined beneath her arm, as he considered the teams and Ororo.

A bolt of lightning revealed a glimmer of tears.

"You two are so much alike."

Ororo turned her gaze out the window. "I did not realize..." Speech failed her. "Oh Jean, he was the dearest of men, the most unassuming of friends. I did not see how important he was -" Wrapping her arms around Ororo, Jean put her head on Ororo's shoulder and hugged the taller woman tightly. Ororo finished speaking, her voice so very small, "to me."

Scott and Ro, Jean thought, two sides of the same coin. Her two impossible friends. 

"He knew."

It was raining outside. Softly. Prettily.

"You saw each other through some horrible times. I don't think any other woman knew him better, except me." 

"I took him for granted."

"It was obvious how much you cared for Scott." Jean hugged her more tightly. "He knew."

Ororo hugged her back. "I should be comforting you."

"Sometimes I wonder about the two of you, what would have happened had I never come back. If he never met Madelyne."

Drawing back Ororo said, "Jean, never."

Smiling gently, "Never? If you were stuck on a desert island together, all alone?" 

"N-n-never."

Jean wrinkled her nose. "Of course not. Me being with Scott took my every initiative -- and still we almost didn't happen." Jean laughed quietly. "The two of you were locked up tighter than clams back then. Still are." Jean's tone was mischievous. She went to the window and put her hand to the windowpane. "He loved you so much, Ororo. Sometimes he felt guilty that you didn't have someone, too."

Holding her arms against her sides Storm spoke carefully, "Is that why you told Forge I did not love him?"

Jean suppressed a look of guilt. "You knew about that?"

"We did continue to talk, Jean."

"I wanted you to have what we had, Ororo. Not, not what Scott had with--" Deep breath, "No substitutes."

"The real thing."

"You're angry."

"Not anymore. I don't understand... But I love you. And you meant well."

"I did."

Jean looked over to the couch, pulled the sheet back, and settled herself in the crook. Ororo sat at the other hand. Tucked her legs under her. Jean slid her feet beneath Ororo's thigh. Reached beneath the couch and pulled forth a bottle of alcohol.

"You'd think," Jean said untwisting the cap, "That Scott would have had more original stashes."

Ororo said nothing. Removed her head from her hand and held her head straight.

Jean said, "I do not deliberately cause myself pain, Storm. I just, I should have known he'd started drinking."

"As should I." 

Yes, Jean thought. Ororo should have noticed. As should she. As should have Charles. Jean put the bottle on the ground and rolled it back under the couch.

"Have you talked to Charles?" Ororo asked.

"I can't. I see him, I see Scott. And I feel so much." Jean made fists above her shoulders and shook them.

"Charles blames himself for Scott's death." 

Jean shook her head. "I need to start planning for everything, and I can't do it here. I'm leaving tomorrow. I'd appreciate it if you told Charles and everyone." She looked away. Towards the window, a frown on her mouth, her fingers poking impatient rhythms in the arm of the couch.

"Goodbye." 

Jean swung her head towards Ororo. "Good enough. I've got things to do."

"Are you sure that is wise?" 

"I can't deal with everyone's thoughts as well as my own. Not right now, not with planning Scott's memorial service." 

"You should not have to."

"No," Jean said thoughtfully, "I shouldn't."

Ororo reached across Jean's leg, covering Jean's hand with hers. Surprise darkened Ororo's features, at the dry feel of Jean's skin. Their fingers opened against each other. Ororo turned Jean's engagement band and wedding ring easily with her thumb, so loose they were. 

They listened to the rain turn to snow.

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To be continued. Read our other stuff. Email us with your feedback.

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	2. One

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Bearing a food laden tray, Ororo walked quickly through a lesser used hallway of Xavier's mansion, over a floor that had been stripped to its first linoleum by thieves and never resurfaced. There simply was not the money. Cheap sod and carpeting had been lain in the high traffic areas in order to make the house more presentable, though in Ororo's opinion it was far from that.

Scott deserved more, his mourners deserved more. Though she went barefoot, Ororo had dressed in honor of the occasion: binding her neglected hair in a delicate silk net; the best of her remaining gold, gleaming and thick, at her fingers, wrists, ears, neck and ankle; gold embroidery worked into the collar, front-panel, and cuffs of the fine black dupioni draping her from neck to ankle. Despite the lightweight material she was flushed. Too many people in the mansion made for a type of heat Ororo could not abide. It had nothing to do with sun and earth. Everything to do with layered clothing, heavy shoes and the intrusive verbal slithering of too many voices pitched too loud.

Even Sunfire had come to pay eloquent respects.

Everyone asked after Jean.

She could hear music. Sean was playing Scott's favorites on a piano rented for the wake. She found herself smiling. As Scott had grown used to the new X-Men, her, Kurt, Peter, Proudstar, and Logan, he'd included himself in their gatherings in the common room.

He'd been so young. His hair parted severely on the side. Sitting in a wing chair, a book in his lap. His attention on Banshee's playing and the easy banter that Kurt and Sean did so well. His smile had been as rare as it had been charming, his song requests rarer still. How Scott had laughed when shyer Peter - of all people - had made a joke. What had little brother said? Something about Jean, and probabilities and telephone calls! When had they, the second of generation of X-Men, become a team? she wondered.

As Sean's playing surged into something unfamiliar, Ororo's pace slowed.

Once she and Scott had made one another lunch-- it had been a hazy summer day - and eaten it outdoors, by the banks of the stream Peter liked to sketch everyone by. They'd expected to meet Sean and the others in the common room later that evening, for something of a sing-a-long, but when they returned to the mansion no one was home. They made enough dinner for them all. Ate some of that. Cleared the plates, put away the unused place settings and had gone to the common room. Not much time had passed, but enough for them to realize that they had been left to their own devices. Nonplused, Scott had sat down at the piano bench and played his entire musical repertoire for her; 'Chopsticks' and 'Three Little Fishes' performed fast, slow, country, rock, and once with a jazzy flare that delighted her as much as it surprised him.

Ororo spared a glance down the hallway. Forge stood before the closed common room doors, his sleek head bowed, arms crossed across his expansive chest. Silver winked from the base of his ponytail.

Storm paused mid stride, her toe held for a fraction of a moment near her ankle, and resumed walking.

She hoped he would not hear her.

"Ororo."

She stopped. Turned.

He stood in the doorway, his hands at his sides. Gravely, Forge spoke. "My condolences."

Ororo nodded once.

"I'm sorry for your loss." Forge looked sincere. He frowned a little under her scrutiny.

Ororo shifted the tray's weight to her left hand, giving the right a rest. "I am sorry, too."

"Do you know where I could find Jean? I'd like to speak to her."

Ororo held the tray closer to her chest. "I am going to see her now, but she is not ready to receive visitors, Forge."

"Figured as much. You holding up okay?"

It was an odd question. She chose not to answer it.

Forge stepped closer to her, "Ororo, if you need anything, need to talk or-- I know this can't be easy for you."

"It is not, but-- I thank you. Jean is waiting."

Stepping closer, Forge inclined his head, inhaled gently. "Is that?"

"Chicken broth? An old Cheyenne recipe? Yes."

The last time Forge had smelled that broth he'd made it for her. She'd been dying. Withering from the inside out after he'd rescued her from drowning in the Mississippi. "Better you had let me die," she had told him. She'd lost her powers, the ability to fly because of a gun he'd created to help law enforcement officers bring mutant criminals down. 

They never talked of it, but he'd saved her life twice, and had gone on to do it again, and again.

Forge had no intention of looking angry and beseeching, but his eyes were hungry and the air between them thickened with a familiar, weighty energy.

One moment he was staring into her unreadable face. Accusations and broken promises shadowing his black eyes. The next, the tray was pressed between them, Forge's hand, the whole one, buried to the wrist in the masses of Ororo's hair, massaging the back of her head. 

As always, his grip was on the gentle side of demanding, but demanding all the same.

"Ororo."

She inhaled sharply. "Do not." Took an audible breath, and stepped back from him.

Extracting his hand Forge peered at her intently.

Ororo frowned at Forge's fleeting smile.

"The broth is getting cold," she said.

He bent, picked up her hair net and dropped it on the corner of her tray.

"Old habits," Forge said.

"You are excused," Ororo rejoined, brushing past him.

Her heart was still racing when she reached her attic suite.

Jean was wandering the greenhouse when Ororo found her, freshly showered; mostly wet hair bound in a ponytail. She'd put on dark pants and an even darker shirt and like Ororo's, her feet were bare. Even though she'd sat on Ororo's couch and express ordered black item of clothing after black item of clothing, she had taken the habit of borrowing clothing from everyone.

"You must eat," Ororo began without preamble.

"I should go down," Jean said peering at the nubby tan and brown underside of a fern, "greet the guests." 

"There is no need to force yourself."

Jean's eyes were overbright in her drawn face. She'd lost her rose and gold tones, that bright almost olive earthiness to her color and for the first time in years her pale freckles stood out on her pallid skin. She wore silver earrings set with turquoise. Her lips were rouged with one of Ororo's lipsticks, a color that was a little off on her considering how dark it was, and how messy her trickling hair.

"Oh, there's a need, Ororo. Nobody loved him as much as I did, but this is as much for me as it is for them. And Charles insisted."

At that moment, Jean was lovelier than Ororo had ever seen her. She was a mask of herself. A doll.

"Is that food I smell?" Jean asked.

Ororo nodded. "And chocolate snacks for dessert. Warren's suggestion."

"Better give me some before I pass out."

"In my rooms?"

Jean gave Ororo an odd look, reached for a bowl of broth. "I like it out here fine. You could put a bed under here, put in another skylight." Jean tipped the bowl to her mouth and drank.

Ororo looked around, at the mulch and dirt spilling out of the beds and onto the worn floorboards. The light that filtered into the green house was corrupted by dust and grime, and the windows rattled in the panes ever so gently with a passing wind.

Truly, the place was on its way to becoming a shambles.

Jean sneezed.

"After a thorough cleaning, perhaps?" Ororo said.

Cradling the bowl in her fingertips Jean spoke to the floor. "Tell me, how did Scott survive?"

"I do not understand." 

"The second time he thought I died. That Phoenix thing. How did he cope? How did he live without me," a bitter laugh, "even though he'd been living without me and hadn't noticed for how blasted long."

"Why do you ask?"

"I need to know how he did it. How he managed. Because if Scott could do it, then I can, too." Jean bent her head over her bowl of broth, tears dropping from her eyes and into the fragrant liquid. "I miss him."

Hiding, yes hiding, he was man enough to admit it, Bobby sank into a folding chair, and moved it over to the side so that the potted bamboo Betsy had bought for the non-festivities partially covered his face. Bobby gave himself a time-out. The leaves tickled his face and shoulder. Too many people he recognized. He was caught between happiness at seeing old friends and the messed up circumstances, boinging between, 'Hey! It's been a long time! How ya been?' and 'Fearless leader is dead.' 

Bobby watched as Storm exited the room with a tray. She was probably carrying it off to Jean. He wished he had thought of it first. Not only was it be a nice gesture, but a great excuse to escape the hordes.

Bobby sighed, and went to get another drink. Raising his glass of liquor in a silent toast, he leaned against the bar. Leave it to Scott Summers to find a way to make the X-Men work like dogs even when he was no longer there to order them to do it. Scott just had to go and leave a good impression on zillions of people, forcing the X-Men to clean the house in anticipation of their arrival and then circulate among them. It wasn't easy, being an X-Man.

But the hardest part was not crying.

Bobby'd be going along just fine, saying all that was usual- yes, thank you, he'll be sorely missed, he was like a brother to me, hey, what's that? ha, made you look...until someone would say something really nice, just something profound and true and wonderful about Scott, and Bobby's chin would start quivering, and he would know that if he didn't excuse himself quickly he'd burst into tears and create a very embarrassing scene.

Of course, if girls burst into tears, it wasn't embarrassing at all. There were times he wished he was a girl. Then again, the last time he'd voiced that opinion, Rogue, had given him the oddest look.

Looking at the last few drops in his glass, Bobby briefly considered going up to talk to the Professor, who had lasted all of seven minutes, and then escaped-- neglecting his duties in an uncharacteristic way. The idea was quickly discarded, however. Charles Xavier was a great man, and he had an easy time giving, but he had extreme difficulty taking anything. Anything including sympathy.

Bobby finished of his drink, and reluctantly went to circulate some more.

He glimpsed Betsy's purple hair, shiny as a mylar ballon today, twirled at the base of her head in something complicated and kinda nice. She looked relaxed, almost happy, while she chatted with Hank, a rabbi and a priest. Hank was as wide as the three of his companions put together. The image-inducer hid his true form beneath that of a clean-cut, not so tall, yet extremely big man in the prime of his life. The rabbi was the tallest of the three. Betsy had her arm threaded through the priest's, and was patting his wide arm as he talked. Her head cleared his tonsured one by half a foot.

Grabbing a fistful of peanuts out of the dish and dropping them into his pocket, Bobby joined them.

"Scott Summers," said Father Omahony, his vowels swelling from an accent caught between Boston and Westchester, "was a very good and decent man. A most earnest young man."

"Huh," said Rabbi Rose thoughtfully, then chuckled quietly. His long calloused fingers stroked the underside of his jaw. "He walked to my house every Friday evening for nearly all of winter one year. My sons had told him that driving was the same as using fire."

Father Omahony grinned, "They told me the same thing."

"How well did you know Scott, Father?" Hank asked.

"Not very, I'm afraid. We had our talks. The first day we met he asked me, What do you think is the meaning of life?'"

"Me too," said Rabbi Rose. "And I think he took notes when I answered."

Father Omahony sighed, "Such a thoughtful young man. So driven."

"I think all that walking from Salem Center from my house was good for him," said Rabbi Rose.

And Hank shook his head. And Betsy, dipped her head thoughtfully, and said softly so that all four men could hear, "Scott was nothing if not precise."

"A good boy." said Father O'mahony.

"Who matured to be a fine man," added Rabbi Rose.

"I met his widow before they married," said Father Omahony. "After he and you too, Dr. McCoy, were believed dead in South America. Plane crash, wasn't it?"

Hank nodded.

"And at that time, Magneto was making such a stink of the humans v. mutants issue. The world would be a much darker place were it not for this school and its students," said Father Omahony.

"You are a blessing," said Rabbi Rose. "My niece, she is special," he wriggled his fingers by his eyes, "A brilliant artist. She sees in infrared." He wriggled his fingers again, "This was a difficult time for her and everyone in the family. Scott spoke to her and-- It is a good thing that you are doing here Miss Braddock, Dr. McCoy."

Betsy patted Father Omahony's arm, and smiled at Rabbi Rose. "Thank you."

Hank crossed his arms over his chest, and coughed.

Bobby pivoted on his heel and went out to the entryway, bending his head and pretending that he wasn't being flagged down. Once outside the room he shoved his hands in his pockets and stared at the phone on the hall table. Pursing his lips he turned on his heels and sauntered down the hall that lead to the common room.

Somebody was playing showtunes. Really old, really hokey, _Annie Get Your Gun_ showtunes. Bobby started whistling along to Anything you can do.'

Jean and Scott used to have the craziest fights. He'd been such a claude, he hadn't known that spat equaled spark back then.

There was _something_ in the hall.

Forge had his hands in Ororo's hair and they were about to kiss. Now, he had known that Storm was a woman. And he had known that she'd dated Forge. But Storm in the hallway, face tipped towards Forge, breathing heavy and deep enough for Bobby to hear at the end of the hall, rocked Bobby's already rattled world. He blinked, jerked his head twice fast and hard, cocked his head and squinted.

Forge tilted his head.

With one eye squinched narrower than the other, Bobby considered faking a loud cough.

Storm actually glared, and jerked away from Forge. Forge smirked. Smirked! And released her face. She stumbled backwards, straightened regally, and ducked through the doorway into the side-hall, the hem of her African-robe-thingy flapping behind her.

Forge stared after.

Bobby sighed, thinking that no matter what, Life, obviously, went on.

He cleared his throat and Forge looked towards him.

Bobby lowered his head, glancing Forge out of the corner of his eye as he walked past the bigger (Heck, everyone was bigger than him) man.

"Hey," Bobby said.

"Drake. Good to see you."

Bobby winced. He just wanted to talk to his dad. His very sick (but recovering) bigoted and insensitive dad.

"I mean--" Forge continued.

Bobby waved him off, shrugging, "Thanks. Uh, you too."

"I'm sorry about Scott." 

"Yeah. Me, too. Jean, three. Hank and Warren, four and five. Thanks." Bobby answered and continued on his way.

He walked a few doors down until he couldn't hear piano anymore and opened the door into a room furnished with a red upholstered chaise lounge and a Tiffany lamp.

This room, at least, looked a little bit right in the mansion that had been hastily carpeted (and only partially) in the nastiest rough weave industrial days before the wake. Unbuttoning his jacket he dropped on the couch and reached for the phone. He punched numbers automatically. At the pick up he said breathlessly, "H'lo, mom?"

"Robert!" answered Maddie Drake, her sweet voice sympathetic and pleased. "How is everyone-- never mind. How are you?"

"It hurts, mom."

"I know, dear."

"No, mom, you don't. He was my brother." Bobby pressed the heel of his hand against his eye. "I wish you could be here."

"So do I."

"Not dad though. Boy. Some people showed up in spandex."

"He's complained about not being there to see that."

They laughed together, then Bobby asked, "Is Dad doing okay?"

"Sure is. Would you like to speak to him?"

"Yeah." Bobby turned on his side and brought his knees up to his chest. "I'll wait." 

"Oh, and Bobby, before I put him on. Did your Uncle Elliot get a hold of you yet?"

"No."

"Oh, that's too bad. Well, he's got an interview with the IRS--" 

"The IRS? What he do?"

"Well, he's being audited, dear. He's left messages for you over email. I wouldn't've said anything-"

Bobby groaned, "Oh, man. I did his taxes!"

"Which is why he wanted to talk to you."

"Ugh." Bobby sat up. "Tell Elliot not to worry. I'm on the job."

"You're so good. Let me get your father on the phone."

He was wondering what to say when his father voice came through on the line, "How are you, son?"

Bobby wrapped the cord around his finger in surprise.

"Not bad. Not good. I got a story for ya."

"What kind of story?"

Bobby took a deep breath, "A ninja, a priest, a rabbi and the Beast were a mutant terrorist's funeral..."

This is way inappropriate, Bobby thought, dipping his lips to touch her offered mouth. I'm an ass and I'm a fool.

_I told you before,_ Emma replied telepathically, her mouth otherwise occupied, _I'm partial to fools._

Her lips were softer than expected. Silky, no softer than that, plush velvet, fine hairs brushing over his lips, around then,tickling his skin and his nose and building an unbearable sensation until he was about to sneeze into the fur. Fur?

Gasping, Bobby woke up blind. Scrabbling backwards on his elbows. The telephone fell from his lap and hit the floor with clatter and discordant metallic clang.

The lights were on and Emma was standing next to the chaise, holding the fur lined collar of her coat in her hand. Her lips were tugged upwards at the corner in an appealing smirk, and her supple and shining white-blonde hair framed her face in a manner that Hank would have described as fetching.

She sighed then said, "You're awake. Finally." She was dressed exactly as she'd been in his dream-- an icicle grey suit with a skirt that almost reached her knees and hooker shoes. He hoped it had been a dream, only she was running her thumb over a patch of fur on the collar of her coat. Her other arm was crossed over her chest, and rested on her throat. Her coat dragged on the ground, part of it mounded over the toe of her shoes.

Emma's winter blue eyes glinted.

"You look great," Bobby said in a rush, cutting off a yawn.

Emma's mouth twitched. He knew that look, she was fighting a smile that was way wider than she wanted him to see.

"How long you been here?" he asked.

Emma merely smiled. "People are asking for you."

"Jean?" Bobby asked hopefully.

Emma shook her head. The hand around her neck loosened and her arm swung down as she looked about the room, revealing Cleavage. She folded her coat carefully and draped it over the back of the chaise lounge.

His expression was guarded and wary as he gripped the seat edge and swung his legs out over the floor. He bent forward and grabbed the phone and put it back on the hook.

He got up, brushed peanut shells from his jacket and lap. Emma sat down, settled herself in the corner and crossed her impeccable legs. He met her eyes after ascertaining that the neckline of her suit jacket really was way lower than it had to be. Her crossed leg began to swing and that strange look in her eyes became more and more deliberate. It was almost-- affectionate. But there was that curved pink-taupe dare below it and her patrician and tip-tilted nose.

"Emma?"

She crossed her hands over her lap, waiting.

Bobby sighed.

"You don't make anything easy, do you?" he asked.

Emma bit her lip. 

"What?"

She significantly brushed her cheek with her index finger. Bobby wiped his hands over his face, dislodging peanut shell. Emma kicked her heels, tilting her head at him. His eyes fasted on the four-inch long see-through heels of her snakeskin shoes.

Your chiropracter must love you, Bobby thought, turning his back on her and walking to the door.

Her laughter was soft, and grudging but he heard it.

He put his hand to the brass doorknob and looked over his shoulder at her. 

"Laying low until the actual burial?" Bobby asked. 

Emma's foot stopped its swinging.

Sometimes Bobby knew Emma as well as she did him, and it had more to do with instinct and interest rather than telepathic possession and several degrees in psychology. He liked to think that sometimes it was the same for her. 

"Jubilee needed to be here as soon as possible, which meant today," said Emma. "Considering recent events, I thought it unwise for her to come alone -"

"Thanks, Emma."

"--But this is a time for family and close friends."

"Thanks for lookin' out for Jubes." Bobby said. "Who's out there, you know?"

"Your close friends and some of their families."

Bobby opened the door anyway.

"Drake," Emma said from behind him. "I'll be here."

"I know," he mumbled, and then not to look completely hypocritical turned to face her completely. There was room on the chaise for three, including Emma's big white coat, and it was comfortable enough to sleep on and it had been a while since he and Emma had touched base. She might tease, but she didn't taunt-- much.

Emma glanced pointedly at the empty corner of the chaise.

A sheepish grin tugged at the corners of Bobby's mouth. Part of him really wanted to smile, but the rest of him was so tired all of a sudden. There was a blind spot dead center of his inner eye. He was pretty certain that he did have a lot he needed to get off his chest. He opened his mouth in partial hope that something coherent would come out. The word was, "Scott." 

He felt a tickle in his nose and sniffed against it. He patted his pockets, grimacing. He sniffed again and found a dusty, flattened handkerchief.

"Y'know," Bobby said conversationally, "My mom's always told me to have one of these around." He turned his head, put the cottony material to his face and blew once, loudly. When he was done he said, "Maybe later we'll," he pointed a finger and waved it a little.

"I'll be here." Emma said.

"Thanks." Bobby answered, and left.


	3. Two

-2-

Of the many who had shown up at the viewing, Alpha Flight was especially trying. Heather Hudson, also known as Vindicator, was about the only one of the Canadian superheroes who managed to address Jean as Jean instead of "Mad - umm, Mrs Summers". Which was part of the reason Jean found herself drifting down the back stairs and out of the mansion after having excused herself to get some sleep and began undressing for bed.

The winter air was brisk but Jean didn't feel it through her short-- sleeved shirt and rayon pants. Nor did she realize that she walked over frozen ground and through snowdrifts for all that her feet were bare.

Her key still worked in the boathouse door. Trailing melting snow and mud, she pushed open the drapes. Hazy moonlight filmed the darkness, gentling it. In her former home it was easier to let her thoughts seek their level.

The cloth-covered shapes of the furniture went together well in the darkness, white fading into grey falling into black, much better than they had in the light of day. She threw herself on the couch, raising some dust and rubbed her cheek against the dropcloth beneath her. Her fingers tapped the oaken floor, making a plain thin sound, like wild tiny horses.

She sniffed at the dropcloth, uncertain if Scott's scent was-- no, not was-- had been a musky floral because he was squeaky clean but spicy to begin with and preferred her Secret deodorant over anything marketed for men, or like that of healthy skin burnt in the sun.

Skin lathered with liquid Ivory soap in the morning, spritzed with the slightly plastic scent of sunscreen and cut by the metallic bite of insect repellant by midday. The crease of his bent arm, the curve of his neck, those were the places where her favorite scents had been particularly strong. On his days off duty, he'd spend the morning outdoors working on the house or some extracurricular vehicle. He'd wipe himself down with the first shirt of the day and some wet-wipes before joining her for lunch. She wouldn't let him touch her otherwise. no matter how winning his smile. Her telepathy gave her extraordinary recall. Why then couldn't she remember Scott's smell, the scent that underlay everything else? 

Jean heaved herself off the couch. She rooted through old plastic shopping bags and slippery Hefty sacks in the unfinished storage closet, but the bag of Scott's Reeking Workout Clothes was in none of them. With brutal efficiency, Jean yanked open drawers and closet doors. The towels hanging in the bathroom were relatively fresh and the linen closet was full. She hadn't done that. Most likely some helpful X-man /_bastard_/ had done her laundry. She found it unevenly folded and stowed in the wrong drawers--her shirts and trackpants in the top two drawers. The bottom drawer slid open slowly. It held Scott's shirts. Size 18 collars. Weight-lifting had made a joke out of the nick-name of Scott's teens. His friends and teammates had called him 'Slim' and he had been. Rail-thin with a speed-bump bottom. Then he'd begun to fill out, and out and out-- she'd begged, cajoled and nagged at him to find another way to keep in top-form when finding shirts for him had become too difficult. 

Her hands ran along button seams and traced discretely stitched logos. Knowing it was useless, she pulled his favorite red chamois from the drawer. The weave smoothed between her hands the way softening butter gave on toast. She shook out the folds of the shirt, held it up by the shoulders and tried to imagine how the breadth and depth of Scott had filled it completely /_filled her completely_/. She pressed the shirt to her face and inhaled. Cotton dried in a drier. Detergent too long in the box. Fabric softener. No sense of Scott.

In the narrow, white tiled bathroom, Jean avoided her reflection. Her head throbbed. Her eyes ached, rubbing against their lids like fine sand. Her mouth was so dried out that her gums stuck to her teeth. Even to her, her own breath was offensive.

Long, drawn-out crying jags were hell on her. Her white-knuckled hands gripped the cap of the bottle of green mouthwash too tightly for her to open it. She didn't like a mouthwash that was too sweet, but her Cepacol was mostly evaporated. Frowning, she flipped her hair off her shoulders with a hard toss, reset her hands on the cap and twisted it off. She took a slug of the green liquid before the sickly scent of distilled impurities hit her.

"Gah!" she exclaimed, retreating from the taste with her entire body. She spat green into the sink and turned on the tap, flushing away the peppermint schnapps-laced Scope.

Scott insisted on Scope. Cepacol was for old people.

He'd been dependent on alcohol for a little while, but he'd gotten better. He had. The schnapps taste-- that didn't mean he'd still been drinking. He may have forgotten. He may have overlooked it. But they'd shared a psychic link since they were kids that had only grown clearer over the years, she shouldn't have missed spiked mouthwash in any case, at any time.

Jean turned from her reflection. Her hand covered her face. The other unclawed from the neck of the Scope bottle. It landed in the sink. Jean slid down the wall until her butt rested on the floor; her legs bunched the bathmat against the wall.

She put her hands on; or perhaps, her face in her hands, her face and moan seeped its way past the narrowed confines of her throat.

The bedroom was dark. The people lying alongside one another in the near dark enjoyed a friendship remarkable for its candor and understanding. One lay on her back, studying the bandaged feet of the other. The one with the bandaged feet, Jean, lay on her side and breathed like one asleep. Her eyes were open. Ororo had escaped the wake somewhat early, as had most of the X-Men who weren't keenly aware of their social duties, or didn't care. Only Ororo had reason, and the reason was the woman stretched on her side alongside her.

Ororo sat up. The aging futon shifted. Everything on it moved accordingly except for Jean, who bobbed as stiffly as driftwood. Ororo cleared her throat and leaned over, her hand hovering over Jean's shoulder.

"How did you injure your feet?" Ororo asked, her voice hesitant. 

"It doesn't matter."

Answering suspicion lanced out of Ororo's mind and through Jean's shields. Jean winced. Her lips thinned and she enunciated, "It was accidental. I went for a walk and forgot to wear shoes."

"You went to the boathouse?" Ororo asked, blinking quizzically.

"Yes." 

"Were you sleepwalking?"

"No." Momentary relief eased Ororo's concentration until Jean said, "I don't think so."

"You could have gotten frostbite." 

"It's okay."

"It is not okay. What's happened is terrible. What it's doing to you is terrible." 

Jean glared sidewise at Ororo. Her expression was hard to read, even with Ororo's preternatural nightsight. "Yes, it is not okay. It is not okay that my husband died fighting some immortal madman who decided to call himself Apocalypse and then bring it on." 

"You haven't been sleeping."

"Hank can prescribe something."

"You do not eat enough." 

"You can always hook me up to an IV."

"This does not sound like you. You are not yourself." Ororo lay her hand on Jean's shoulder. Her voice was as soft and light, "What have been thinking?"

"'Your head is a dangerous place. Don't go in it alone.'" Jean said, quoting from a source unfamiliar to Ororo. Ororo's fist touched lightly on Jean's shoulder. Jean shrugged it off then turned on her back. Her eyes were shining, with tears about to overflow. Her broken voice issued from the shadow that was her mouth, "How am I supposed to be myself, Storm? There's this echo in my head and it doesn't have a source." 

"Could another telepath help you?"

Exasperated, Jean turned onto her side. "I don't need help, I need Scott." 

"Nevertheless."

"You'd have to sedate me before another telepath got in here."

"I am afraid for you, Jean."

Jean blinked. A tear ran down her cheek. "So am I."

And not at all of her own volition, Ororo rose from the bed--"Jean?" --and was propelled gently towards the door. "Release me!"-- crossed the threshold-- "Jean, put me down this instant!" She was set just as gently on her feet inside the greenhouse. Thunderheads built in the sky above Westchester. The bedroom door slid shut. "How dare you!" Ororo called, and immediately her cheeks warmed with embarrassment. Scott was dead. But for Jean to toss her bodily outside of her own bedroom-- outrageous! Ororo shouldered the door. Scott was dead. It remained closed. Jean was widowed and she was acting strangely, and the last time Jean had thought she'd lost Scott the Phoenix Force had happened. No matter how hard she pulled the door would not open. Scott was dead and Jean had shared a psychic link with him from when they were children.

What was it like for Jean all alone in her head?

Shakily, mind whirling, Ororo made her way to the kitchen.

In the kitchen, bare hands on her hips, Rogue stood over the sink, cursing it.

"Rogue?" Ororo asked, concern for the younger woman erasing her anger with Jean.

The woman in question turned her head, displaying her wan face. She looked slightly off-color. Her green eyes smiled slightly.

"Hey, Storm."

"What is the matter?"

"Dadblatted thing won't work. Ah twisted off the handle tryin' to get water outta it. Been at this too long not ta know my own strength." Rogue held up the twisted off knob in a hand that shook a little. "Damn."

"Give it to me," said Ororo. Rogue dropped the spigot into her outstretched hand.

"Perhaps you haven't stripped it." 

Rogue sniffed loudly, snagged a paper towel from the dispenser and blew her reddened nose.

"Gangway," announced Bobby as he came through the double doors, laden down with plates, "comin' through, more dishes for the galleys-- O! Where have you been? Everyone's been asking for you."

"Good evening, Robert." Ororo assembled a smile, which brightened when she properly fit the handle onto the spigot. "We are solving a minor difficulty."

He looked from woman to woman. 

"Plumbing problems?" Bobby asked, his eyebrows raised a little.

Rogue punched him in the shoulder, playfully. Which meant less hard than an aluminum bat. "You better quit with them puns, sugar, or Ah'm gonna have to punish you." 

"Blast!" said Ororo softly. "Blastblastblast." 

"What is it, boss lady?" Rogue asked, going to her side.

Ororo had her hand on the spigot and had twisted it hard open. Bobby peeped around Ororo's shoulder from the side. The pipe coughed and spluttered. A single drop plopped out and vanished down the drain. "The water bill," Ororo said.

"Y'all forgot the water bill? How are we gonna do all these dishes?" 

"No prob. Rain lady can rain us some water, I can make us and melt us some ice."

"Water for dishes, we have. But our facilities will not be operating at peak efficiency." 

"And a whole lot of guests," Rogue said. "This stinks."

Bobby grinned. "There's always Port-a-pottys."

Rogue was back-stepping out, her boot heels clicking on the linoleum. She snatched her fawn-colored gloves off the table and jerking a thumb over her shoulder, said "Ah'm a gonna get on the phone, see what Ah can arrange."

Ororo stood in the middle of the kitchen. "There used to be curtains on these windows, potted plants, pictures."

"African violets on that window sill," Bobby added, moving his head to indicate where the purple flowers once sat.

"We put in tile after Sabertooth came here-- the first time. Put up new wallpaper."

"I didn't like the new wallpaper. Didn't have the heart to tell Peter. Between you and me, I'm glad it's gone."

"Since Bastion, oh, since the massacre in the Morlock tunnels, nothing has been right. And this poor home has taken the brunt of the blows."

Thinking of Jean, probably asleep in Ororo's bed, and his own hurt, Bobby disagreed, but not aloud. "How's Jean holding up?" he asked.

Ororo rubbed her temples at the familiar refrain.

Seeing she wasn't going to answer, Bobby went on, "I mean, you seem to spend the most time with her.

"I don't suppose you could convince her to come down to see me 'n' Hank 'n' Warren at Wolverine's cabin? I mean, if it wouldn't cause her to go Dark Phoenix to be surrounded by the other people who loved him."

And Logan. Who at least respected him, Ororo thought.

Charles Xavier watched through the security camera as Jean Grey-Summers methodically searched his desk. He exited the surveillance room.

He pushed the door open and waited for her to notice him. Her head was bowed over his desk, and she was scanning his files.

"If there was anything you needed to know, you could have asked."

Jean's eyes cut towards him. She pursed her lips and scratched the back of her neck. Inhaling noisily through her nostrils, she opened another file.

"I must ask that you leave my office. This is a viol--"

"Where is he?" Jean said. Most of her face was lost in shadow, but the hollows above and below her eyes lent her irises a purple glow, almost red.

"I don't care what it is. I don't care what you told him, how you convinced him to follow whatever harebrained, ill-advised scheme you've come up with, but you call him back from whatever fool's mission you've sent him on."

"You know I can't do that, Jean."

He lowered his shields, partially. _You have only to look_. 

Ignoring his invitation, Jean stood. "You bring him back. You tell him he has to come back. I need him!"

"Scott is dead."

"Bull! He's, he's..."

"My dear. I wish I had a body to show you, but to the best of my knowledge and ability, and that of our colleagues and even Dr. Strange, Scott is nowhere to be found."

Biting her lip, Jean grimaced. "You keep saying that. But haven't you done this to us before?"

Xavier had no response to that.

Jean smashed her hand against the stack of paper files on his desk, scattering them to the floor. "Such is my life," she hissed, her anger and sharpened thoughts deafening as she cleared the room.

Ororo walked to the cliff, unfastening her clothing along the way. At the edge she looked down, and shrugged out of robe she had slipped on. Setting down her jewelry where she could be sure to find it again, she stared down at the moonlit pool of water many feet below.

Moonlight on the water. Starshine above an amphitheater of clouds. Wind sliding along her skin and through her hair. Arms an extension of the moment. Heart keeping time with the pulse of the earth, the slow exchange of oxygen for carbon dioxide in her lungs in sync with the turn of the earth. Caught between ground and the starry deep, for a moment Ororo was weightless.

Her body tilted forward and she tumbled from low to low and fell closer to the earth, brought her arms forward, lengthened her spine and arced into a dive.

Bobby, reclining on the banks of the pool, heard the rushing of wind. He saw a silver-white streak of her long hair and heard the tiny splash made by her body.

"Hey Storm," said Bobby when she came up. "S'me."

"Robert?" she asked, recognizing his bluff tenor. Then her eyes adjusted to darkness immediately and she saw that his fair hair wavered in a slight breeze. His light-colored eyes were enormous with sorrow. He looked so much the way he had when they'd held vigil over his father and her heart squeezed.

"Who else'd be out by the lake when it's cold enough to freeze?"

"Any number of us. I did not see you, here," Storm said, swimming to where he sat. "Do you wish me to leave?"

"No. Not really."

She held onto the overhang and kicked up until she could lean her upper body on her arms and her arms on the ground. He did look, but her flowing hair and the uncertain light made him uncertain as to how much of her was actually exposed to his eyes. Anyway, it wasn't anything he hadn't seen before. You weren't an X-Men until you'd seen Storm naked.

"I did not see you at the wake." 

"Was talking to my parents. And you took off, too, before I did."

"Hmm." Ororo said noncommittally.

"Saw you and Forge in the hallway outside the rec room."

There was a long pause. "Funerals make the familiar strange," said Ororo.

"Oh yeah. 

"Storm, you believe in a Heaven?"

"I--" 

"No don't!" Bobby interrupted, "Tell me. I--" he sighed. "How Scott died was really fucked up, but really appropriate. I hope there's a Valhalla for us."

Had the moon been brighter, Bobby would have seen the animation drain from Ororo's features at his words.

Bobby unfolded his legs from their crossed position, ignoring his aching ankles as he did so. "I'm gonna go inside," he said, and before Ororo could respond, did. 

Bobby Drake didn't look as if this was one of the saddest days of his life. It helped that he was the cutest X-Man as well as the most baby-faced, even if he hadn't been sleeping much. Remembering Scott and holding Wings' hand when no one was looking was taking up much of his free time.

He entered the men's communal bathroom, managing to walk quietly even though his dress shoes were very new, their soles dangerously slick on the exposed concrete floor. Hands in his pockets, he strolled to the wall of showerheads. He approached a showerhead and stared at it. Lips together in a soundless whistle, he looked over his shoulder, bent at the knees and the waist and looked under the stall doors. Not willing to let anything go to chance, he reached out with his water sense and checked for the warm salinity of human/mutant bodies. Verified that he was alone and reached for a showerhead he'd loosened that morning. It came apart easily and he shoved a bouillon cube (Knorr, nothing quite so greasy as warm Knorr in the morning) into the cap and screwed the cap back on.

This one's for you Scott, Bobby thought. Just as soon as the hot water gets back on.

The common room was filled to capacity. Guests weren't going home, many of them not having seen Jean until she made her appearance at the internment. She'd vanished after tossing the first handful of dirt onto the grave but had preceded Storm into the room. She wished she'd taken something to dull her responses to everyone's thoughts, but she needed her full faculties.

She'd taken a drink, and ended up between Cable and Hank. Big blue to the right of her grizzled, time traveling and borne by her clone, the first Mrs. Summers, Madelyne Pryor, to her left. She clung to Hank, pressing her cheek into his serge covered arm. Her hand was enveloped by Cable's massive paw. 

She was finishing up a sneaky-Scott story involving a filthy rich egotist who wanted Scott to fly him and his latest wife (v.5) to Denali. The snow warnings had been in effect, and Scott hadn't wanted to do it. He'd taken the man up three times before, with three different brides. "You'd think with his track record and ego he'd think to blame me," Scott had said.

Scott kept referring to the latest wife by the name of her predecessor, apologizing profusely each time.

People had to laugh. Especially Heather Hudson, Alpha Flight's Vindicator, she understood the pointed remarks for what they were and took no offense on behalf of her rapidly uncomfortable teammates.

Much drinking to the memory of Scott, and Charles, who stayed by one of Betsy's bamboo plants, drank quietly (water) and didn't say a word, his mind tightly shuttered against all telepathic queries, which was just as well, since Jean's was, too.

When all was quiet, and people's attention off of her, Jean excused herself and escaped up to Charles' office.

She unlocked the door to Cerebro's room and entered. 

Her pulse was steady, her mind clear. The helmet had been modified and was lighter and larger. The small smooth globes of the sensors weren't even a prickle against her scalp. She could do this. Xavier kept ranking her as one of the premier telepaths on the planet. She hoped so. She'd shared a psionic link with Scott for most of her adult life but hadn't been able to find him.

She'd die without him.

Her searching heart was shutting off areas where it was sure that Scott no longer lived, leaving Jean to consciously pay attention to her mind. That she hummed 'hold onto your love' only disturbed her partially. That her self was slipping through her grasp would have terrified her if she hadn't been so tired.

She wanted to sleep. She couldn't afford to. Every time she woke up more of her was missing.

Cable suspected, and Hank's tactful intrusions on her solitude had much to do with his suspicions. Big Blue missed nothing.

This was her last effort to find her husband, seek him out on the astral plane, enter the dark places of human thought if need be. She wanted her husband and she wanted to live.

Jean's love for Scott had attracted the Phoenix Force to her when she was first dying on the shuttle above the earth. Moved by love, the Phoenix Force had offered Jean safe haven in a shell. The Force took Jean's place, piloting the X-men and most importantly Scott, through a solar storm back to Earth. Love kept Jean alive at the bottom of Jamaica Bay. Love taught the Phoenix, the original, humanity's glories and shame. Love brought the Phoenix back from the dark side and compelled it to lay down its life so that no other sentient being would suffer for its passions. Love set it free from the shackles imposed on it by Xavier and Jean, and lit up Cerebro's control panel like Dawn.

The shadow it cast on Jean's previous psionic feats was utter and complete. Jean searched like a powerful, but slow computer, more detail than she could quickly process entering her mind. The search was for Scott, and the Phoenix Force in Jean and her mind power, knew Scott, his aspects, his temperament, his ways. But he'd loved life, and everything Jean sensed reminded Jean of him.

At first her search was scattered, as she sought out pain that matched his when Apocalypse's blast struck him instead of Nate Grey. So much hurt in the world, even extraordinary, supernatural pain like that Apocalypse brought to bear on Scott. She'd bitten her inner cheek, and blood reddened her lips were they met. Mucous shone on her upper lip, and the whites of her eyes were red.

Telepathically, she increased the magnitude of power employed by Cerebro, opening up as slowly and as far as she could stand.

To say it was agony was groundless. It was giving birth through her pores. The muscles in her back and along her spine jumped and twitched and her poor head twitched within the light casing of Cerebro.

Jean's nails broke off in the leather arms of the chair and she spasmed once, twice, dislocating a shoulder when opposing contractions wracked her. She tried to hold herself down with her tk, and just managed it, but tears were leaking out the corners of her eyes and she could not find Scott. Could not find him.

Psylocke, voluntarily mind blind, sensed the chaos first, coming to alert before the first non-telepathic psi-sensitive went into a seizure.

Intuiting the cause, Psylocke raised her arm and summoned a shadow. As she sank into the shadow-portal. Ororo dove behind her and into the floor, narrowly missing the floor. The portal closed behind her vanishing feet, snipping off a portion of the hem of her gown.

Ororo had always held onto Psylocke when shadow-walking with her. The vivid darkness swarmed and ate at her senses. It was luck that closed Ororo's hand around Psylocke's ankle, and luck that allowed her to tumble out of the shadow place and onto the floor of the Professor's office right before the portal closed. Psylocke was slamming on the door with her flattened hand, the other digging into her scalp, screaming for Jean to "Stop it, Ican't fight him, for God'ssakeyousillybitch stopit!"

Ororo hadn't been so messy in years. Winds accompanying the ball lightning she summoned, whipping papers off of Xavier's desk and shredding the leaves from his one remaining potted plant-- a ficus. The lighting broke through the lock, and Psylocke kicked the door open. 

Meanwhile Hank followed Cable out the door and up the stairs, Cable bellowing 'JEAN! JEAN! DON'T."

"Shadowcat!" Xavier commanded, grabbing the confused young woman, Kitty Pryde, by the arm. "Phase through Cerebro's power source!"

Suddenly immaterial, Pryde dropped through the floor. The shielding had been meant to withstand anything, even her, but Hank had already ripped off the casing. Kitty zipped through him and into the power source, and for a moment she was the premier telepath on the planet, screaming as Jean's agony, energy not quite electronic nor quite telepathic crackling through Kitty's phased body. Kitty was flipped out back into the chamber, knocking straight into Hank. He remained standing, but the impact was another insult to Kitty's battered body, and she fluttered like cloth, phased and unconscious, partially in and out of the floor.

A quick glance at Xavier confirmed that he was thinking the same thing as Hank- the only help that the intangible Shadowcat could benefit from right now was telepathic. Hank left Xavier to care for her, and bounded past the newly-opened door, sizzling and swaying uncertainly, as if it didn't know what it had done to merit such treatment. He stopped abruptly beside Jean's chair. "Oh my stars and garters," he whispered, mainly for continuity, since the phrase, or any other phrase for that matter, didn't seem up to covering the scene before him. Jean's body was seemed to have suddenly collapsed. Her lips and nose were flowing with blood. Her sightless eyes pointed upward, partially opened legs twisted at unnatural angles and from beneath Cerebro's helmet smoke curled from her singed hair. But her hands still gripped the chair's arms as if her life depended on it.


	4. Three

-3-

In the women's communal bath, an exhausted Emma peeled off her jacket. Still in her blouse, skirt, and hose Emma picked a shower, and turned the knob enough to produce a trickle. Nothing.

After Nightcrawler had teleported her into the power room below the mansion to tend to Katherine Pryde, Emma had lost track of time. Jean Grey's idiot stunt could have cost young Pryde her life, and she'd crippled herself in the process.

Grimly, Emma ran her fingers through her hair and turned the knob on another shower. That, too, was dry.

Her help had been unnecessary, though. Emma had told the others so after Pryde had informed her, mentally and in rather curt terms, that she neither wanted nor needed her help. Emma had shrugged, glanced around at the assembled X-Men and said drily, "She'll be fine."

After Katherine Pryde, Emma had tried to tend to Jean, who had mentally made just as plain that she wanted the former White Queen of the Hellfire Club nowhere near her mind.

When Emma had gone to physically put hands on Jean to she see what the woman had done to herself with her lovely little display of psychosis, she'd felt her hands catch fire. 

Gritting her teeth, she'd withstood the illusion and had told the red-haired psi to stop it.

It was exhaustion, Jean's teary exhaustion, that caused the tactile illusion of flames to dissipate and not any effort on Emma's part.

"You couldn't push me away," Emma had said wonderingly as she rubbed her hands. "You've burned out your telekinesis, haven't you?" 

Jean Grey had crippled herself out of need.

How disappointing.

Emma wanted to go back to her Massachusetts Academy, and though dead tired and now the 'premiere' telepath on the planet, she wanted nothing more than to return to her Academy, teach her charges to be shrewed and resilient, and by all means, practical and after that, maybe take over the world.

Emma chuckled, turning from the last of the shower head. That too was dry.

"The world is not enough," Emma said, not knowing why she said it. Groaning, she put her jacket back on, and went in search of Storm, or Bobby, to beg the privilege of a shower.

"Jean? Jean? Jeannie-baby? Hon?"

Jean could've listened to the soft southern voice for hours. Maybe if she waited long enough, the voice would get to something horrible like snuggle-bunny or cutie-pie. But the voice wouldn't go on forever; it was expecting an answer. She opened her eyes slightly and said, "Hey."

The relief in Rogue's green eyes would have been overwhelming if Jean hadn't expected it.

"It's okay if you're not up ta talking," said Rogue. "Ah just wanted to tell you how happy Ah am that you'll be okay. When Hank told me you'd recovered...well, it would've been too much, ya know?"

"I know," said Jean. She propped herself up on one elbow, "But tell me, how's Kitty?" The end of the sentence was swallowed up by her strained throat, but Rogue had no trouble understanding.

"She'll be fine," Rogue soothed, handing Jean a glass of water from the tray beside the bed. "You're the worst casualty."

A figure appeared in the doorway, and Jean added belatedly, "And how is Betsy?"

"Betsy is fine," said Psylocke. "But there's a score of X-Men wondering how you are. Are you up to seeing them? Blink once for yes, twice for no."

"What about I don't know?" asked Jean wearily.

"If you don't know that you're up to it, then you're not," said Rogue firmly. "Sleep. Ah'll go tell everyone that they'll have to wait."

Jean's purple-haired and skunk-striped helpers left the room. Jean was grateful for it, it being both their help and their leaving. With them gone, she could think about Scott in peace. Scott, and how he wasn't there. Scott and how he'd never be there again.

Whip-slim Kitty Pryde moved with the sinuous grace of a dancer and unconscious purpose of a martial-artist-- usually-- but her torrent of light brown curls, the obdurate set of her delicate jaw-- which was a trifle long for conventional prettiness-- and the snap of intelligence in her eyes were the only things usual about her physical appearance. There were bags under her enormous brown eyes and she limped a little as she walked alongside her towering companion. His codename, Colossus, fit him. Had she not been so focused on staying upright, she would have noticed that she'd renoticed his good looks.

The hall was empty except for her and Peter, which was probably a good thing since Kitty didn't feel quite up to maneuvering around people or through them. It was hard enough to stay solid without switching on and off, off and on.

"Head rush," said Kitty, and leaned against the wall with one arm. Peter took her other arm and compelled her to lean against him instead, and so they walked on, side by side, though she came less than half-way up his chest.

"Has Betsy's telepathy come back yet?" she asked, disoriented by his proximity. She couldn't remember the last time she'd been this close to him. She was entirely sure she disliked it.

Peter shook his head no, then his brows furrowed as he regarded her. "Are you sure you feel like doing this?" His concerned look always made him look like a puppy, or some equally adorable mammal, and Kitty laughed even though it hurt. "Definitely," she said. "We can't let Jean stew in her own guilt. She's gotta know that I'm..." Kitty's words were cut off as she stumbled slightly. Peter steadied her.

"That you are...?" he prompted. 

"Fine," Kitty finished defiantly, her firm chin jutting. "I am fine. Here we are."

She peered around the infirmary doorway to see Storm, Logan, Bobby, and Jubilee were already gathered in the infirmary.

"It seems Jean already has enough company," murmured Peter.

Kitty had to agree. Not that Logan and Storm were really monopolizing Jean's time; Logan looked surly and Storm looked amused. But Bobby Drake was chattering non-stop and making wide gestures, his babble occasionally punctuated by comments from Jubilee.

Before Kitty could escape Storm waved her and Colossus in.

"We won't crowd the place too much?" Kitty asked, entering the room reluctantly. 

"Not at all. Bobby and Jubilee were just about to leave."

This news seemed to surprise the Iceman, who glanced around questioningly. "We were?"

Storm nodded confirmation. Bobby looked about to argue, but Jubilee took his wrist firmly and said, "C'mon, Drake. Give the sick woman a break."

"Oh, was I talking too much?" Bobby said, sounding genuinely apologetic. "Sorry about that. But you won't have to hear me talking again for a while, so it's okay." Jubilee yanked him towards the door, and he added, "I'm gonna go pack now. I'll call sometimes, okay?" He was now halfway though the doorway, and he took hold of the doorframe as Jubilee put all her weight-- which wasn't much -- into unfastening him. "Get well soon, Jean! Don't do anything I wouldn't do! Don't forget to-- Hey!" he exclaimed, releasing the door abruptly as Jubilee bit his knuckles.

There was a sound of arguing as Bobby disappeared. Colossus, standing closest to the door, reached out and closed it softly, muffling the sounds coming from the hall.

Jean and Storm sighed in unison.

"My God," said Jean.

"He wanted to say goodbye," Storm said.

"Longest way of saying it I ever heard," muttered Logan.

"Bobby's leaving?" Kitty asked politely, taking the chair that Iceman had recently vacated.

"Going to his parents' place. Something to do with an audit."

Jean's eyes alighted on Kitty and they brightened slightly. "Kitty, you're really fine?" 

"No permanent damage done. I'm more worried about you." 

"No need," said Jean, with an attempt at a reassuring smile. Kitty suppressed a flinch at the expression-- sometimes it was uncanny how much Jean reminded her of Rachel. "I can already walk some," the redhead added, with mock pride. 

"Yay you! You'll be back on your feet in...oh, wait, you've done that part, haven't you? You'll be back in your own bed in no time."

"Well, in one of Ororo's beds, anyhow. That's on today's agenda," said Jean. "I'm looking forward to getting out of here." But Kitty knew by Jean's expression that she wasn't looking forward to it at all, or anything else for that matter. Probably wasn't even looking forward to the next episode of a favorite TV show.

_Oh, Jean_, Kitty thought to her, knowing that the sickly telepath couldn't, or at least wouldn't, be monitoring her thoughts. How did you get to this point? And what can we do to bring you back?

Kitty exchanged a few more pleasantries with Jean, but Jean's weariness was palpable, so she and Peter at last left Jean to the less trying company of Ororo and Logan.

As the muffled sounds had indicated, Jubilee and Bobby were still in the hall. On the hall floor, actually. Bobby was on his back, laughing, hands in front of his face to shield it. Jubilee's knee was pressed into his sternum, and she alternated between trying to slap him and abortive attempts to gouge Bobby's eyes out. Peter shot them a look of disapproval. "Get off me," Bobby urged, his voice filled with laughter. "There are people here!" 

"Not until you take it back!" said Jubilee, half-scowling, half-grinning. She broke past Bobby's guard to plant a neat punch to his nose and Bobby yelped in surprise.

Kitty stepped around the two and continued down the hallway, Pete stepped over them and followed suit.

"Wait, wait!" Pushing Jubilee off of him, Bobby Drake clambered to his feet and practically bounded after them. "Kitty... You'll be here for a while, right?"

Kitty cocked her head sideways, and said slowly, "Yes." Beside her, Peter shifted impatiently from foot to foot.

"And you have close bonds with basically everyone in the mansion. Except me. So you won't feel a need to protect me from any of the chaos which will inevitably manifest itself under our leaky roof, correct?"

Kitty inclined her head in hesitant agreement. Bobby nodded, satisfied, and dug into his pocket, pulling out a crumpled receipt with a phone number on the back.

"If things start going to hell...if Jean tries anything stupid-er, if Storm cracks and blows away the remains of this place with a tornado, if Rogue happens to absorb half the team's powers...call me, okay? I think the others might want to keep me out of it, but I don't want to be kept out."

Still on the floor, Jubilee rolled her eyes. "There's a reason they like to keep you out of it, Drake, and it's got nothing to do with protecting you."

"Shut up," he said, without turning his head. "So, will you? I mean, if you don't mind."

"No problem, Bobby. Though I don't quite anticipate any disasters of that magnitude." 

Above them, Peter smiled briefly, glanced up at the ceiling and scratched the underside of his jaw.

Bobby shook his head. "Pryde, you were in Britain way too long." He gave her a half-salute, and turned to help Jubilee to her feet.

Kitty folded the receipt neatly and put it in her pocket. What an odd task to be charged with, and by Iceman of all people. She wasn't sure if it was flattering or just strange.

She was exhausted from all this standing. Before she said anything though, Peter took her arm and murmured, "Bed now. You need rest."

Kitty hadn't been aware it showed. To her amusement she found herself grinning up at him rather than removing her arm from his firm grasp. 

Sunrise was the better part of an hour away when Jean sat up in bed. Oddly enough, she didn't disturb Ororo. 

Jean left the bed without waking Ororo, slipped off her sleepwear and dressed in the dark, going about the room and picking up discarded piles of clothing and sniffing them for freshness.

She reached for her boots behind Ororo's recliner, carried one in each hand and sidled from the room, down the stairs, and to the rear of the house.

She made it outside without encountering anyone. 

Most eyes would not have been able to see her once she cleared the porch lights. She was a phenomenal looking woman-- strong yet sloped shoulders, small waist and strong, curvy silhouette. Her hair was sleep mussed and the collar of her padded flannel jacked was tucked under her shirt at the neck. Her sweat pants were baggy, but they did nothing to hide how breathtaking was her form even in the dark of earliest morning. Not to those eyes. Standing on the porch, Jean looked up. Ever graceful, she trotted down the steps in a slight crouch, craned her neck and surveyed the sky before making for the trees. There was the sound of large wings beating and Jean disappeared from view, her path to the little cabin on the edge of the clearing hidden by the overhanging, overmeeting branches of trees.

She picked her way carefully to a small cabin in the woods. Carefully, but in the dark, as if she'd made her way there before. But that wasn't right. She moved silently, but Logan had the best hearing of the X-Men.

The cabin itself was silent. 

Jean went to the woodpile, flexed her mittened hands, grabbed the frosty ax handle and wrested it from the stump. She held the ax blade down and took up a log. Set the log narrow side down on the stump, braced her feet and swung back up and down with the ax, cleaving the log in two.

Jean chopped and chopped until she ran out of wood. Then she stacked wood, brushed chips from the chopping block and leaned against it, pressing the back of her mittened hand to her forehead. She sat there for a long while. Eventually, the door opened, revealing a square of firelight and the silhouette of a short, powerfully built man. He was almost as wide across the shoulders as the doorway was wide.

"You 'bout ready for coffee, now?" Logan asked.

Her back to him, Jean sniffled. "In a minute," she said. "I'll be-- Thanks. In a minute-- Uhm."

Inside Logan's cabin it was warm and quiet. She didn't have the mind to pay attention to the layout but they were in the kitchen, somehow. She hadn't been paying attention to how she got there. She shivered in her clothes.

"Where you gonna go?" the voice belonged to arguably, one of the most dangerous men on the planet.

Jean sighed, shifted her seat across the counter edge, her shoulders rolling choppily as she shrugged.

"I don't know," she said. Her hair caught what little lantern light there was and held it. It was a trick of flame shimmering through oil, but to Logan's eyes Jean was aglow. 

"You don't have to know, Jeannie."

"Away," Jean whispered. "Just away."

"Ain't nothin' wrong with that."

The blue stoneware mug was withstanding the abuse Jean's suddenly frantic hands were trying to do it well enough, but Logan calmed them with his gentle touch. His hands were rough all over the palm and color, bloodrush, assaulted the pallor of Jean's skin, making her flush along the column of her neck and over her ears.

Her lips darkened to the color of dried cherries, and bars of color appeared over her cheeks, right under her green eyes. Logan took the mug from her and set it on the counter.

"It's been rough on you, Jeannie." 

"Where have you been?"

"Wanted to give you space, darlin'. Time to grieve and space to breathe." 

"Logan, you've given me everything a woman could ever ask for."

That was it really.

Jean looked down and the stroked the skin over her third vertebrae with thumb and middle finger, her ring finger crooked in her hair.

"Thank you," she said miserably, having realized that she'd come here because she'd wanted to telepathically borrow his memory sense of Scott's scents. "Thank you."

"You don't got anything to thank me for."

He knew better, but he continued to stand in front of her anyway.

It was always the same kiss.

Every time.

His mouth slanting under hers, hot and wet and silky and soft, his stubbled skin satisfying, stimulating, exhilarating, her legs parting effortless noiselessly, his chest thrumming, hard and hot against hers. So much noise in that kiss, same one every time where she wanted in in in and he held her, held her tight but fan-fucking-tastic and her hands tugging at his hair, grazing his chin and him still as stone one moment, a gale force the next.

She sat up on the sink, he helped her up, stared at her. She stared back into his expressionless eyes.

She should go. She really should.

He'd given her everything a woman could ask for.

She was touching him, sliding her palms over his shoulders, over the worn flannel of his shirt, so thin she could feel the strap of an undershirt and the hair on his skin.

He licked his lip, unselfconsciously.

Blood rush, inexorable, gravity driven, everything in a working body and heart facilitated it. She went from sitting on the counter to clinging to him and he carried her out of the kitchen.

The kitchen area was quiet. The whole cabin was quiet. The window over the sink was shut. The gingham curtains over them showed no sign of having been smashed by Jean's back.

A single drop of water dripped from the faucet into the stainless steel sink.

The rag-rug in front of the sink was slightly mussed.

Outside the window the deep dark of night gave way to the beginnings of dawn.

That morning Peter made pancakes for breakfast.

All present pronounced them delicious. Except for Warren, who had very little appetite despite his pre-dawn flight and Jean, who wasn't there. 

Kurt, while spooning some left-over fruit compote onto his muesli, asked Ororo if he could finish it and if she had already set some aside for Jean's breakfast.

Ororo smiled, and said that seeing as how Jean had probably gone for a walk that morning, she would be getting her own breakfast and that was no longer her concern.

That news was met with pleased surprise from those awake enough to note it - this excluded Rogue, who's curls were soaking in the milk of her breakfast cereal-- Jean had not left Ororo's attic rooms since being released from the infirmary three days before.

Warren, who was holding hands with Betsy beneath the table, clenched his free hand into a fist. Betsy noted the muscle jumping in his jaw, bent her head closer to him to hide it and joked that Peter had finally learned to make proper pancakes just in time to see if his -- which she'd tasted a forkful of-- compared with Jean's.

Jean forgot what she was looking for in the garage. With a sinking feeling she began to suspect it was Scott. She closed her eyes, inhaled the ghastly-thrilling odor of new car, old motor oil, stiff rags and LAVA. Opened them and saw that all trace of her husband was gone from what had been one of his most frequented spots. She went over to the locked tool drawer, touched what had been his tray. Scott had always had a tray of tools. There was a key dangling there, in the lock. She blinked. He'd kept that key on a ring. Scowling, Jean turned the key and pulled open the drawer. It was empty, Scott's personal things gone.

Jean slid it shut, gingerly, still scowling. There was probably a box of his tools waiting for her to sort through somewhere in the mansion, or maybe even in the boathouse. Wonderful.

She made her way outside amd she passed a shiny black two-door she'd never seen before. It looked a lot like a sneaker on wheels. Stuck to the trunk was a black and white Bavarian Motor Vehicle logo.

"Z3?" Jean read aloud, tracing the silver-color model number.

While Jean was standing beside the car the garage door swung open. Warren, a tall fair skinned man of patrician features, had been dealing with his own grief quietly. Scott had been his friend and his leader. Warren had spent all of his adult life listening to Scott, even when Scott wasn't physically present. As hollow as Warren felt, he was convinced that Jeannie was crazed with grief from the silence. 

"Jeannie."

She looked up to see him lounging in the doorway, one arm raised above his head, leaned up against the frame. His hand dangled next to his face and his hair curled about it. His gorgeous wings were partially fanned open. He was a beautiful man. Beautiful in an otherworldy way even before his skin had turned blue like skim milk in shadows and she missed Scott.

War was long and well put together, immensely strong and fast. And graceful. Easily the most beautiful mutant. He had a way of getting her past too much funk, too much thinking about thoughts. When Scott was driving her crazy by not acting on his obvious love for her, Warren had helped keep her on the sensical side of nutty, but that wasn't any good now because there wasn't any Scott. Warren's hand lifted. He threw and Jean caught what he threw without thinking. Jean looked into her hand and saw the car key. She was frowning at the key while Warren strode down the stairs, slid across the hood of somebody else's car-- he didn't dent the hood he was so light-- and stood on the other side of the car.

She wanted Scott.

"What am I supposed to do with these?" she asked.

"You're taking me to breakfast." 

Breakfast took place in a window booth of a chrome faced trailer with a red fluorescent sign that read 'DINE '.

Their pancakes were half eaten. The bumpy, clear brown plastic of the orange juice glasses were moist with condensation and Jean, of course, looked sad, across from Warren with her face turned to the window. She wasn't looking out, though.

Warren heaved a sigh and the sticking sound the vinyl cushions made as he scooted off of his seat and took the place next to her was noisy but Jean kept looking at nothing. Touching her elbow and nudging her with his hips, War made her move over.

He picked up a white paper wrapped straw and held it, folding his hands and placing his fingers along the straw. Jean's shoulders rose and she rubbed one hand with another.

"So," Warren said.

Jean hunched her shoulders, leaned her head against his arm.

"When are you leaving?" he said.

Jean wrapped an arm around his middle and almost smiled. "I wonder... I wonder what if." 

"What if, what?"

"What if," if I had loved you instead of Scott. Would I still hurt this much? Instead she said. "I think I'm going back to Alaska. Pack up the house. Maybe today. Maybe tomorrow. I already bought the ticket."

"I figured." He took up a strand of her hair, and thought it was that same amazing color it had been when they'd first met. For the first time ever he wondered what it looked like through ruby quartz, and he was sick at heart.

"Warren?"

"Yeah?" He waved off the waitress.

"You're the best." 

"That's why you bought me breakfast."

She smiled, that quick smile of her teens when she was less certain of herself and everybody else, much less wise and a tad more whimsical. Warren smiled back and began talking about something else, hoping to mask the sound of his heart breaking.

-0-


	5. Four

-4-

Ororo checked for drafts as she paced the hall, causing wind to blow outside the house and paying close attention to where it went.

The funeral had brought home how much the X-Men had really lost, but the funeral and wake had been an opportunity to regroup and reconnect - she wished. The sense of disappointment-- of failure-- had been palpable.

Ororo had seen surprise and disappointment in the eyes of those who had been children at the mansion: Rahne, Sam, Roberto, Jubilee who was not yet fully grown. They had been uncomfortable, their eyes casting about them in disbelief when they thought no one was looking.

Rahne, whom she was given to understand was no longer prone to crying, had refused to visit the former New Mutant's wing, and instead had gone to Ilyana's grave and wept. Tabitha had told Bobby and Bobby had told her.

Then Jean losing her telekinesis, and Betsy her telepathy, and two nights ago, while plastic forks chased tangy lettuce around plastic plates and ice-cubes clinked in the pitcher of iced-tea being passed from person to person around the dinner table, Jean announced her intention to leave for Alaska. Ororo had thought she had been making progress, that they had been making progress. Jean had tried to reassure her, but the fact remained that she was going up to Alaska and she didn't know when--or if-- she was coming back.

Ororo broke into a run down the empty hall and skidded to a stop in front of the nearest door. Opening it, she saw a familiar figure. Gambit on the porch, squatting on the boards and smoking a cigarette. It was reassuring.

Ororo stepped into the refreshingly cool outdoors, draped herself over his back and hugged him. His leather trench coat reeked of old smoke cigarette smoke and him. That was reassuring, too.

He took a final puff of his cigarette and flicked it over the side of the rail, lay his hands over her crossed arms.

"How she doin'?" he asked, his voice light and scratchy, but resonant.

Everyone asks after Jean, Ororo thought. "She left this morning but I know she is very unhappy. In truth, I do not know how she bears it, Remy."

"She probably don' either." He stood carefully, arching his back in the process until Ororo's feet dangled, then straightened so she was back on the ground. He turned in her arms and touched his nose to hers, "You ready t' leave dis place?"

"Not yet. Are you thinking of going?" 

"De air be thick hereabouts. An' I got business." 

She frowned. "What kind of business?"

"Business, business."

"Be careful."

Remy grinned, "Dere's no fun in dat, chere."

They linked elbows, stood face to face. "You take care, Stormy. Don't be turnin' into mopey mope Stormy-type One-eye cause he ain't here no more. Hear me, chere?"

She almost smiled. Not often did concern reduce Gambit to baby talk.

He kissed her between the eyes. Her hands settled on his waist.

"Be careful," she breathed.

"I be back real soon," he grinned, stepping backwards. He thought of asking her to give his regards to Rogue, but instead he placed another kiss on her forehead.

Alarmed, she hugged him tight, then grabbed onto his hand, "Remy, careful." He stepped away, dropped a kiss on her hand and with a jaunty wave vaulted over the porch railing.

And she resisted the urge to yell, 'Don't leave me!' after him.

Making her way to the Professor's office, Storm suddenly knew how the X-Mansion felt, with its empty halls, its neglected rooms, being fully aware of having done a long difficult job, and having done it well, yet with nothing to show for it. Nothing-- even less than it had started with.

No, that thought was unworthy of her. She had a lot more than she had started with. But still, with the funeral over, the mourners gone, many of the X-Men gone, and only the clutter and the emptiness left, she couldn't help but feel a little depressed.

Yawning, Bobby clambered down the front steps, skitted down the frosty lawn in sweats and his mother's yellow quilted house-slippers, and hopped onto the sidewalk before he could fall onto it. He hit a patch of ice and immediately landed on his bum.

"Yeeouch!" he shouted. His voice echoed in the empty street. Bouncing amont the modest, well-kept, single family homes hunkered behind the deep lawns slanting towards the wide street. There were no cars in the driveways-- most everyone having gone to work. Evergreens and thick-trunked maples rose into the crisp sky. Had anyone been at home, they would have come out to help him, he'd yelled so loud. It was that kind of neighborhood. The sun slanted through the thin cloud cover and the breeze carried the faint briny tang from the sound. Salt water, fresh water and frost, that was all he could smell, though it was garbage day. Empty cans, the lids fixed firmly on the bins, waited to be tugged back up the snow-spotted lawns and driveways and out of view.

This was the place Bobby had grown up in. This was his hometown.

"Welcome to Port Jefferson, _Lon Guyland_," he groused as he stood, rubbing his tush. "Lynching capital of the north shore." 

He popped the trunk and glared at the boxes and bags crammed into it. He hoped his suit wasn't at the bottom of that pile-- but he wouldn't doubt it. He started unloading his car.

Ororo entered the Professor's office.

It was much barer than it used to be. The warmth had gone the way of the books, paintings and worn carpet, destroyed by Bastion's nanotechnology. Personally, she didn't know how the man tolerated spending such long periods of time in the place. It was stifling.

Storm sat down across from the Professor. He was giving her that Look again. The look that-- according to Kitten-- said that he was thinking something that she really should know about, but probably didn't want to know about. Like a psychiatrist who, the moment the session was over, was going to recommend to your family that they have you committed.

She had to excuse him for the unintentional affront, though. They were all on edge, they were all still in mourning, and the mansion was going to fall in on them any day now.

Charles leaned back in his chair, resting his hands on the desk and tenting his fingers. "How many X-Men are currently in the mansion?" he asked tiredly.

Storm scanned her mind. "The mansion is supporting nine currently, Professor, including ourselves. Most of the others have left for various reasons." Most of them very spurious.

"Ah." He rubbed his eyes.

"No-- eight. Gambit left this morning."

"What?" Charles' tired look vanished. "Gambit left?"

"He will be returning," Storm assured him.

His wakeful moment passed, and once again the Professor was sitting back, listless. Storm sat up straight but she was just as restless as he was. They both knew they should be doing something. No doubt, Storm reflected, he had those brief bouts of energy, too, when he'd tell himself he wouldn't give up, those moments when he felt he could do anything. They lasted about two minutes, though.

She could remember a time when those moments would last for days. Years. The better part of a lifetime.

And then it slipped away in a few seconds. A few crucial, fatal seconds.

"Let's do this later," said the Professor, rubbing his eyes again. They were words Storm had never heard before on his lips.

"Yes. The work does seem to be piling up. I had better attend to it." And there, words she had never thought to hear on her own lips.

The Professor nodded, Storm nodded. She rose and left.

The work was piling up.

Arms fisted forward, Rogue flew. Tears trailed from the corners of her eyes and 100 mile-per-hour winds tore at her face and hair. Faster and faster she flew by a mechanism that she barely understood. The sun had set seconds ago and fading, dying hot-pink and red runners of its light crawled feebly at the lengthening horizon.

"_T-Minus 9 seconds to window_," chirped Shadowcat, by way of the communicator prototype nestled in Rogue's ear.

"Darn-it!" replied Rogue, and attempted to increase her speed by piggybacking on a vertical wind. 

Storm made it look easy. The wind and Rogue collided the way semis did. She jackknifed out of her arrow-straight posture and clamped her hand over her ear.

Free-fall.

Had she not been invulnerable her spine would have snapped, but she twisted with the movement.

"_Rogue, you okay?_" asked Kitty.

"Yeah" Rogue said, pulling out of the spin and squaring her shoulders. She laughed. "Updraft caught me by surprise," and arms back, left leg extended behind her, right leg bent at the knee, she resumed flight.

She punched through a wet cloud-bank. Water droplets diademed from the crown of her head and beaded her body. Her unstable-molecule catsuit of muted grays, blacks and blues, faded her into the dusk, but for a moment Rogue streaked mercury against the clouds.

The vertical wind quit eight miles up.

"Exiting the troposphere!" crowed Rogue.

"_Roger_," replied Shadowcat.

Without the winds it was smooth sailing and her deep breathing began. It ended with her taking the deepest breath before 9.8 meters per second squared was no longer a consideration because of Zero-G.

Sudden nausea took Rogue's stomach for a brief spin above her shoulder and around her ears and she was spinning above Earth in low orbit, her legs fetched up against her chest as she scanned above, below and around her for the Harrisblite satellite. Her auburn hair took on a blood-cast in space and the white stripe in it glimmered like diamonds under glass.

Rogue saw glints of what were probably satellites but not the one that looked 7-Zark-7's mutt cousin from the old kid's show.

_'Only take you 3 minutes if you make the window,' Cat said_, Rogue thought.

"Shadowcat?" she sub-vocalized. "Rogue to Shadowcat?" Making a rude face, Rogue pulled the communicator out of her ear. Fine cracks radiated through the plastic surface. The thing was broken. T-minus 8 seconds read her watch. Instead of flashing, the numbers were solid. 

That was broken, too.

Whatinall? The satellite should've arrived by now or maybe--

Rogue ducked in time. 

There was no sound in space, so the satellite antenna that snagged in a floating lock of Rogue's superhumanly strong hair gave no warning on approach.

"OW!" Rogue said, surprised and alarmed by being caught in a Harrisblite satellite antenna and immediately expelling her air supply. Water molecules froze and vaporized.

Rogue snapped the antenna in half and the satellite broke free of her. She bobbed over to it, grabbed hold of satellite body, crossed her legs around a fuselage and delicately pried open the access panel. She opened the Velcro tab of her black, fleece pullover vest and pinched out the trio of tiny transmitters Shadowcat had given her. She squeezed the silicon envelope off of one and pressed it amidst the neat bundles of colored wire and waited the three seconds for it to sprout connections like it was supposed to. 

Four seconds later and it was still stuck amidst the wires. 

Spit.

A vein began to pound in Rogue's neck. She remembered that she was supposed to subvocalize 'green' so Kitty could send the signal.

"Green," subvocalized Rogue. 

No answer.

Rogue tapped the X-Com she'd fastened to her chest and opened her mouth to say, 'Yo, Cat.' But she'd gasped out the last of her air when she'd cried out. Shadowcat must've gotten the signal, because the transmitter sprouted connecting wires. Rogue tapped the access-panel shut. Rolling her eyes, she back-flipped away from the Harrisblite satellite and back into Earth's atmosphere.

Coming home, Rogue spied Kitty in Shadowcat costume, dashing towards the Blackbird.

Rogue jabbed her thumb and pinky-finger in her mouth and whistled, "FWEEEEET!"

Kitty looked up. "ROGUE! What happened up there?"

Rogue touched down. Her fists were clenched and she propped one on her hip, flipped open a Velcro pocket on her vest and pulled out three objects-- two transmitters and the cracked communicator prototype.

"The new communicators are crud, Cat, if what happened to your prototype is anything to go by. I think the cold killed it."

Kitty took the objects with a look of resolved disappointment.

"Stupid upworlders. Told you Mystique's whelp is indestructible," grated Marrow, also known as Sarah, from the jet's ramp-way. She'd poked her head out the Blackbird, having gripped the lip of the jet's underside hatch. Her still, rough voice complimented her appearance. The skin of her face was creased and lined by old scars fading in different stages. Three fresh outcroppings of bone, sleek with sclera, dotted her left cheek. Dried bone knobs knotted her scull and lank, bloodshot-red hair parted around them. A large bone growth warped her left shoulder. It would be useful as a bladed club when it finally popped. Her green-gold eyes blazed foxfire in the dusk, reflecting the Blackbird's running lights the way night animals' eyes would. 

Peter tramped down from the ramp with a look of relief evident on his open face. He was six feet five inches of wheat-fed Siberian farmboy. His hair was the stuff of darkness and his eyes the deep, bright blue of summer night skies. His well-modulated voice carried, but it was as gentle as his body was large.

"We were very concerned when Katya said she could not reach you." 

Marrow snorted.

Peter offered Marrow his hand. She batted it aside and flipped down on her own, graceful and sinewy as she landed in a crouch beside him. He smiled down at her, a lop-sided, melancholy sort of grin, and she rose to her feet. She cracked her neck, and vamped to the house. Her martial stride heavily involved her hips. As she passed between Kitty and Rogue she flung a head-set that went with the X-Coms at Rogue's feet.

"Thanks, Sarah!" called Rogue, her eyes dancing.

"Marrow," snarled the young women without looking back.

"Reminds me of me," said Rogue, dimpling.

"You were never that bad," Kitty replied.

Rogue stooped to pick up the head-set. Holding the broken communicator prototype to her eye and squinting, Kitty walked back to the house.

Peter transformed into his armored form, pushed shut the jet ramp, and began to tug the Blackbird into the hangar.

Rogue started after Kitty, but mid-way to catching up with her, turned to watch the way Peter's metallic skin reflected the sleek darkness of the Blackbird, the lush shadow of grass, the lights and the night...

Kitty descended the stairs to talk with Storm. "Hi, I just thought--" she began, but stopped as she reached the bottom of the staircase. Storm was nowhere in sight--no, there she was, beneath a bare light-bulb, lying in a pile of clothing recently emerged from the dryer.

"Hello!" Kitty called down. "Hello?" 

"I am having a moment," said Ororo in a slightly aggrieved tone.

"Ah." said Kitty lightly.

Ororo sat up and picked a sock Kitty hoped was clean from her shoulder. 

"I" --flash-bulb smile "--was working on the communicators, and got to wondering if you could use any help with...the laundry?"

"No, not really," replied Ororo, standing up and looking remorseful. "I should not have snapped at you."

Kitty shrugged, and crossed her arms atop the railing.

"I have come to the realization that you cannot run the washing machine without water." 

"So...you're putting everything through the dryer instead?" Kitty asked.

Ororo sighed. "Perhaps I'm not getting enough sleep."

"I would have thought that with Jean gone you'd have more time to yourself."

"But no," said Storm.

"But no," echoed Kitty. "Maybe you need...hunh-- maybe you need talk to someone? Why don't you come outside and walk with me?"

"I could not possibly," said Storm, starting up the stairs. She tugged on one of Kitty's fat brown curls. "There is too much to be done," 

"Tell me about it," Kitty said, tilting her head and pulling her hair out of Storm's grasp. "Communicators, our intercom, and the Institute network's acting up. But enough about me, how about that walk?"

"I'd be driven insane by inactivity. House communications are below par?"

"And how. I called Forge. It's all we can do to get the microwaves not to set off the house alarms."

"Truly?"

Rolling her eyes, Kitty nodded. "I'm so glad Bishop's not here." 

Storm shuddered. "And my concern has been house matters."

"Running water would be good. Especially since the port-a-pottys were picked up this morning. Which-- ha-- we may not have needed after all. Did you know that we've got a well?" 

"Goddess. Perhaps I should start delegating tasks." 

"That's a good idea," Kitty called after her. "Make Peter and Kurt do something messy! They're starting to get on my nerves..." Ororo was out of earshot now, and Kitty began to follow her, but then thought better of it. It was starting to get rather chilly upstairs, and the laundry looked very warm and inviting.

Kitty plunked down and curled up in it, muttering, "Walking involves activity."

Meanwhile, Storm went in search of someone, anyone, to do her bidding. They needed to collect their efforts if they wished to accomplish anything.

She found Rogue and Kurt with their heads together, discussing something in what would have once been easily identifiable as the living room. Rogue sat sideways on the chair with her legs slung over the arm. Kurt sat on the couch, his body twisted towards her. They both fell instantly quiet as she entered the room. Kurt's expressive tail was ominously straight.

"Hey, 'Ro. How're things goin'?" Rogue asked, sympathetically. Her eyes were wider than they should have been.

"They could be worse," Storm admitted, eyeing Kurt's tail. "I am calling a meeting. Where is Logan? For that matter, where is Marrow?" Her voice grew more impatient. "I have not seen that girl in the longest time!"

"You might note," Kurt said blandly, "that you haven't seen Piotr in just as long a time. The two went on an outing this morning and have yet to return." He picked a strand of auburn hair from his blue fuzz covered shoulder.

Ororo regarded them critically, and at last said, "Well, we will hold a meeting without those two then. Be in the War Room in a quarter hour." 

Rogue and Kurt regarded her steadily. Kurt's pinpoint pupil, yellow eyes were especially searching.

"What is it, old friend?" Ororo asked.

"...and Forge?" asked Kurt, gently.

"What about Forge?"

"Whose gonna tell him to come ta the meeting?"

"Forge is here in the mansion?"

"Katzchen was to tell you--" 

Tossing her head, Storm pronounced, "Either one of you can do it. I need to inform the Professor of the meeting."

She stormed off, either not noticing or choosing to ignore the look that Kurt and Rogue exchanged.

Fifteen minutes later, Rogue, Nightcrawler (Kurt), and Shadowcat (Kitty) were assembled punctually in the War Room. The Professor and Storm entered and, about ten minutes later, Wolverine arrived. No one reproached him for his lateness. It would have been a waste of breath and incentive for Wolverine to be even later for the next meeting.

Charles swept his lofty gaze around the room. "I was informed that Forge was in residence," he said to no one in particular.

Shadowcat gripped the edge of her seat with her hands and pointed the tips of her toes on the ground. "He went into the City to pick up repair materials." Her lips thinned into a straight line.

"The first and foremost concern is the financial," said Storm, in her usual soft yet sonorous tone. "We cannot hope to accomplish anything if we do not attend to the basic necessities of life." 

"As in, runnin' water?" from Rogue.

"As in a TV," suggested Shadowcat.

"How do you intend to go about this?" interjected Nightcrawler, his finely drawn features skeptical.

"I'm afraid the financial is not my forte," admitted Storm. "A loan, perhaps?"

"How would we pay it back? We've gone through the last one," Nightcrawler replied.

"Why don't we all get jobs?" said Rogue brightly, who's brief stint as a member of the Brotherhood (of evil mutants) had prepared her for a successful career as a mercenary, celebrity bodyguard, or bouncer.

Wolverine, who's long career as a mercenary had him well provided for in any event, champed down on his unlit handrolled cigar.

"What?" Rogue asked of all faces turned on her.

"Regardless," the Professor broke in, "we have been neglecting training lately. This should not be allowed to happen." The last was said directly to Storm. She nodded.

Now Wolverine spoke up, for the first time. "We're too used to having money behind us, Chuck. Lots of folk do more than get by on a lot less than we have now."

Shadowcat scowled. "They don't have alien-tech based security or communication systems to keep up and running."

"Not to mention the grounds to maintain," added Nightcrawler.

"And dorms and classrooms, and licenses or a cafeteria, if we ever expand," said Rogue fetching a round of blank looks. "And if we get real desperate, 'Ro or Gumbo can always steal us some."

"I'm not even going to consider that idea in jest," said the Professor. "We have a duty to abide by the law, and maintain a good reputation, both in word and spirit."

"We do not need money for that," pointed out Nightcrawler.

"And our reputation's not much, anyway," added Rogue.

"And," said Shadowcat, "being known as the hygiene-challenged will really contribute to our reputation as upstanding citizens." 

Silence.

"We seem to be arguing in circles," sighed Kurt.

They all sat for a moment.

"I trust in your ability to come upon a reasonable solution," said Professor Xavier, "so, if you'd excuse me, I have some letters to write."

The Professor disappeared out the door. After a moment of silence, Kitty raised her hand. "I vote we go with Logan's idea."

"What was your idea, old friend?" Ororo asked Logan.

"Go steal us some money, Storm." Kitty said.

"You know we cannot do that," Ororo sighed. "I am sure there is a simple answer to this difficulty." 

"There always is," said Kurt, complacently.

"But at this moment in time," Kitty finished glumly, "none of us seems to care enough to find it." Least of all the Professor. 

Rogue clapped her hands together, drawing all eyes to her. "How 'bout we make a list?"

Traffic on the way home was horrible. Main Street was packed with cars of people who'd driven out to the City for work and had gotten stuck on the way back in. For the life of him, Bobby couldn't remember why he'd driven out to the IRS appointment for his Uncle Elliot. 

Elliot's business was crooked. Bobby hadn't known that, but after a day of listening to the internal revenue service grill Elliot, Bobby was sure. Apparently, someone else had known that Elliot's business wasn't on the up and up and had switched the cooked books Bobby was supposed to do the return on with the real ones. 

Sheesh.

He told his father, William "Willie" Drake, as much when he got home. Willie, who was watching the fishing channel and was holding a fly reel in his hands, paused mid-cast and said, "Everything in that man's house fell off a truck; what do you mean you didn't know his business wasn't legit?"

His mother, Maddy, wasn't home-- obviously, and Dad had taken full advantage. The fish in the aquarium were looking very stressed as a result.

On the counter was a glass vase of two dozen yellow roses.

"Who sent the flowers, Dad?" Bobby asked. 

"Dunno." William struggled with the line that was caught in the curtain behind the aquarium. "I didn't open the card. You wanna give me a hand with this hook and line before your mother gets home?"

Bobby helped his father unstick the fishing hook from the new living room curtains and took a shower. By the time he got out, Bobby's dad had put away his fishing line and there was little evidence that he'd been practicing in the living room. The fish still looked a little stressed, though. When Bobby walked in his father said, "Shhhh!" even though only the opening credits for _This Old House_ were playing. In his hands, William cradled a model of a tool-shed.

Bobby sat down in the chair next to his father's.

"Son," said his father during a commercial break. "I have plans for this house. And I'd appreciate your help in executing them."

"You serious, Dad?"

"As a heart attack. The backyard's crying for a new deck."

'This Old House' came back on. The front door opened and Maddy Drake called for help with the groceries. Bobby leapt over the arm of the chair and the coffee table.

His mom wore a tracksuit and her hair was wind-mussed. Her cheek, when he kissed it, was cold though flushed.

"Did you walk all the way from the grocery store?" Bobby asked.

"Of course I did, dear," she replied.

"You're mother's a walking fiend!" William Drake yelled from the living room. 

Bobby arched his eyebrows, helped bring in the groceries and went back to watching TV

"Oh, how nice," Maddy said when she saw the roses on the counter. Instead of going to them and opening the card, she began to put food away. She took out a package of Entenmanns chocolate chip cookies and set the box on the counter-top.

"Bobby dear," she called, laying her fingertips on the box of cookies. "Would you fix a plate of these for yourself and your father? Dinner's not until seven." 

Bobby levered himself out of the La-Z-Boy went around to the kitchen to get out some plates. In the bustle of putting the groceries away and hooking up the slightly soft, tiny bit of salty-on-sweet cookies. He forgot to ask about the flowers.

Of course, his Mom had to go and forget something from the grocery store. Not that he could exactly blame her, now that he had forgotten, too. He strolled aimlessly down the grocery aisle, and tried to remember what his mom had asked him to pick up for her. She had told him to write it down, but he had assured her he could remember. It proved to be partially true; he could remember that it started with a 'P'.

_Pickles. Pork. Pimientos._

His mom never used a grocery list anymore, and aside from forgetting to buy the mystical p-item, her ability to remember exactly what she needed for each carefully planned meal of the week was amazing. It bordered on a mutant power, in fact. But all of mom's uncanny abilities stemmed out of the necessities life placed on her. Conversely, Bobby's life stemmed out of the necessities his uncanny abilities placed on him.

_Port. Peppermint. Parcheesi. Potatoes._

The woman had conformed to the world around her. Bobby's world had conformed to him. In the end, though, it all ended in human routine. In the end, you both forgot the same thing at the grocery store.

_Peppercorn. Pandas. Potassium._

_Damn_ it. There could only be so many P-items in a grocery store. If he checked on all of them, it would have to click eventually. Or he could just buy everything in the store that began with 'P'. He could just picture his mom's face. _Hey, I spent a thousand or so dollars so I didn't have to make another trip. Hope you can find a use for it all._

_Peas. Paltyrrhyne. Perimysium._

This was getting him nowhere. He was doomed to wander the grocery store forever, in search of...

Margarine. 

She had wanted _margarine_.

He was only a few letters off, actually.

Bobby got some margarine, and went over to the checkout counter.

When he got home, his dad's car was gone. He picked up the plastic bag from the grocery, too large for its meager contents, though he had bought some Coke and a candybar, too, to make up for the facts.

The front door was unlocked since he had left it that way, unconcerned for his poor defenseless parents' safety. His dad probably had a gun secreted on his wheelchair, anyway. He had kicked off his shoes and started towards the kitchen when he heard an unfamiliar and rather, well, unnatural sound. His mom was giggling.

High-pitched, breathy, weird little giggles.

"...so naughty." he heard, and it didn't sound anything like it did when he'd been behaving badly as a kid.

He knew he shouldn't, but he didn't buy that mom walked everywhere, even to do the grocery shopping. She'd be gone from the house for hours at a time and he was suspicious. Using skills honed over many missions he snuck down the hall. As he scuffled quietly down the hall, he could see the upturned edge of Maddy Drake's too-blonde hair. She was leaning against the doorway, curling the telephone cord in her hand. "...a blue dress," she purred.

Traumatized by her tone of voice, Bobby pressed himself against the wall. His heart was beating too hard and he felt like he was going to puke.

"Oh, and an apron..." She giggled again.

"What kind?" That purr again. "Well," drawling, "white," breathy! "and very, very, frilly--"

Bobby broke into a run and started a slide, shouting at the top of his lungs, "HEY MOM!" 

Maddy Drake whipped her head around to stare into the hall, and stepped back just in time to avoid having Bobby hit it with his shoulder. He jostled her arm as he coasted down the short hallway. 

Maddy Drake shrieked and dropped the phone. Bobby slammed into the closet door. The house shook.

"Bobby," scowled his mother and picked up the dangling telephone. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes sparkled. Very carefully Bobby noted her clothing. Her apron was bright red and embroidered with chickens. The dress she wore beneath it was blue. Not a single article of clothing he could see was white, and there wasn't a frill in sight.

Cradling his elbow Bobby piped, "Hi Mom! Where's Dad?"

She held the phone to her chest and pursed her lips. Tossing her head, "He went out."

"Dad went out by himself?! Without any help?"

"He's a grown man, Bobby. He can't sit at home all day long playing king of the remote, you know. It would do that old rascal good to go out and do something useful." 

Bobby gaped at her. "Mom?"

She sniffed, "Don't you have things to sand?"

"After dinner."

She put the phone to her ear and made shooing motions with her hands.

He made beseeching eyes at his mom. 

His mom turned her back on him.

He distinctly heard her say, "Call me later."

Bobby purposefully stomped to the refrigerator and flung it open with an exaggerated sweep of his arm. He put the Coke on the bottom shelf, pocketed the Snickers, and reached towards the place where they kept the margarine. Then he stopped, and said accusingly, "You already bought margarine!"

"No, dear. That's butter. But your father needs to watch his cholesterol, and I forgot to get margarine instead. Now, _out_."

Bobby closed the refrigerator and slunk out of the room with an angry dignity. And walked all the way down to the hall, and slunk on cat feet back to the kitchen doorway.

He heard the beep-beep-boop of her dialing a number. Rapidly.

"You there?" he heard his mother say in a breathy voice he would have never recognized as hers, not in a million, zillion, dog's years.

She giggled. "You're much more fun than he is, any day."

That's it. Bobby decided-- she's having an affair.

Jean extended her legs and stretched, and stretched. So this was the utopia so many men had strived vainly to see past the fabric partition. Leg room enough for everyone; cheerful, willing people attending to your every need; good-looking food and snazzy headphones for superior entertainment.

First class. It even smelled nicer.

Sure, the advertisements tried to pass it off as something called 'business class', but they weren't fooling anyone. 

Jean felt a satisfying pang of pity for the poor saps cramped in coach.

Also known as 'economy'.

Honestly, who did they think they were kidding?

Stroking her hand down the ecru leather upholstered arm of her seat, Jean peered out the window at the patchwork ground below her. If she wanted, she could go to one of those little farmhouses that dotted the landscape and stay there forever, the mysterious yet friendly redhead who was good with the animals, or the mysterious stranger who was so improbable in melancholy demeanor and exotic appearance and presence she might be a character straight out of a romance novel; or the woman who haunted her house and her neighbors' minds like a wiser Boo Radley.

Or, instead of shrinking into oblivion, there was also infinity to be considered. Hurtling through the cosmos, planets in your grasp, the unspeakable ecstasy of being a part of the endlessness of the universe. Eternity. It had seemed like such a simple thing with Scott, and such a daunting thing without him. Now it was...but it didn't matter what it was, because it couldn't be.

The other compartments of her mind, the ones that held memories, and the ones that held the real future, were shut off for the moment, so she could finally savor all the possibilities. She had to run with them, if only in imagination, before the gates opened and the memories came after her, like some nightmare creature.

"Excuse me, miss."

Jean sat up straight and squinted at the flight attendant.

"The captain has turned on the fasten seat belt sign."

So this was why people were still searching for a utopia. There were people here, and they talked at you; not quite perfection, this. Jean made a noise in her throat fastened her seatbelt, and pushed the silver-tone button in the side of the chair arm before leaning back, back, back, and trying to regain her train of thought.

It was irretrievable, though. She looked down at her hands, now beating a tense, muffled rhythm on her thighs, and spoke softly to them, "I think that I'll end up back where I started no matter what I do."

Even with her telepathy shut off, she could still feel all their thoughts, clinging, begging, hopeful, afraid.

She could delay the inevitable, though. You could give a nightmare monster a run for its money. You could forget that they'd put an empty coffin in the chapel graveyard. She had appeared on Cable's arm at the memorial service. They sat in chairs in front of a very nice box and pretended that her husband was in it, then they trooped outside to bury it in the ground. And that was the last time they had all-- they being the people of the X-- that was the last time they were all together.

She leaned forward, way forward, in what began as a violent movement but smoothed out into one of calm certainty as she pulled her purse between her feet. She rummaged around in it a while, before pulling out her wallet. There were only a few small pictures in there - there were doubles of a few somewhere and the rest were not important. She stuffed them into the ashtray of the empty seat next to her. Then, rummaging through the rest of the purse, a few group photos. Some very old, but none very good. One was a little blurry and had a thumb in the corner, and in another Hank was shown to his advantage but no one else except the one or two X-Men who always photographed well. The others had no distinguishing qualities but the remarkable people contained in them. Jean slid them into the middle of one of those airline magazines, and stuffed it into the pocket behind the pamphlet that had the safety procedure.

Jean leaned back, resolving not to move for the rest of the flight. She stared out the window at the spots that she was fairly certain were farm houses. Her eyes were dry and hard, like the lines crossing her forehead.

Winter back home-- almost, but not quite cold enough, Bobby thought.

He stood in his parents' back yard, a strip of old terry-cloth bathrobe tied around his head. His faded jeans were more thread than whole and his tank-top was almost the color of the sky. His arms and shoulders gleamed with sweat under the weak morning sun.

He was digging a ditch, which was remarkable because the ground should have been very hard, almost frozen, because it was, of course, winter. 

Bobby's father, William Drake, sat in his living room. The door was open, letting what should have been cool air inside the house. Bobby's powers were doing work double-time, softening the ground and keeping the cold out of the house, sort of.

Had the lady of the house been home, the door to the backyard would have been closed and Bobby wouldn't have been digging a ditch that she had almost forced her husband to concede was unnecessary.

William Drake had been brutally beaten by a group of bigots and was unable to walk as well as he used to as a result, but that wasn't why he was staring at Bobby while Bobby dug.

"You should bend your knees, more. You're not young enough to not do something permanent and ugly to your back," William called. He sat in a wheel-chair, a red and black plaid hunting cap on his head. His shoulders were hunched and a hunter orange-- virulent and aggressive-- fleece blanket was tucked around his legs. He held a green thermos in his mittens hands and he was scowling.

"Like this dad?" called Bobby, not adjusting his body a bit.

William Drake grumbled.

William Drake had decided to put in a pond and Bobby was helping him with the effort.

Bobby had gone to Builder's Square. While there, he'd succumbed to the call of a Hunter-orange Builder's Square T-shirt, Hunter-orange floating key-ring, and Hunter-orange water-bottle holder and had applied for credit cards for himself, his mother, Maddy, and his dad. He used his credit to buy BIG tools. Big, scientific. carpentry tools.

Most of which were piled in the living room on crumpled newspaper.

"Did I ever tell you about the time your grandfather and I put up a shed in your grandmother's backyard?"

"No, Dad." 

"The only measuring tool we used was a two-dollar bill." 

"I thought that was the shed up in cousin's James' yard."

Bobby's dad picked up the to-scale model of the gazebo there was absolutely no room in the backyard for. "The only measuring tool we used was a two-dollar bill. All you need is a straight edge and a good eye. Long as you got a good eye and-- I saw that! Measure twice, dig once!"

Maddy walked into the living room, wiping her hands on her apron. Bobby had been at it for hours, and could be seen from the window, trying to measure wood with mincing hand over hand motions, the way an inchworm would in slippery, metric only world. The measuring tape he held in his hand was his father's and weighed at least a quarter of a pound. 

William Drake sighed. He had asked his son for help with the house, this was true, but while he had perfected the fine art of tormenting Bobby, but Bobby was so eager to please and so willing to make repairs and work on projects- his dad's way - that eventually he retreated to his living room to sulk. Now he just sat in the living room, and emitted mournful sighs.

"Willie, what is it?!" 

"He's awfully busy..." said William Drake.

She sighed, somewhere between approval and dismay. It was good for boys to be put to work, but... "There's too much to be done around here," she said, "and I know the work has been piling up but I'm only one person..."

Her husband nodded again, stiffly.

"Oh dear," Maddy Drake said under her breath. She untied her apron, pulled it over her head. She slipped on her outdoor slippers, sitting by the door, and went outside to talk to her son. Outside, it was much warmer than she had expected. 

"Bobby dear," his mother said laying her hand on his arm. "Goodness! You're cold. Your father appreciates what you're doing here, but," Maddy crossed her arms and shivered, "It makes me cold just to think about you walking around the house, installing things. And outside of the house, building things." 

"Uh, did he send you out here?"

"No, no, he didn't. It's just that you're giving me pneumonia with that outfit!"

He was wearing a sweatshirt and jeans and had on ear-muffs.

"How 'bout I finish measuring this plank, and bring the rest of my stuff into the garage? Would you be happier if I worked there?"

Thinking that it would do for now, Maddy nodded. Bobby's measuring tape was upside down. He had his nose to it but at least he was holding it straight.

"And, dear?" she said in a hesitant voice that Bobby had learned to fear as a teenager. A facts-of-life, drug-education kind of tone. "I just want you to know that no matter what lifestyle choices you make, I still love you."

Bobby smiled relief that this was all she had to say. "Yeah, I know. If I thought you completely disapproved of it, I wouldn't be living the way I am."

Maddy's eyes widened slightly, and she said in a small voice, "Oh." 

He tapped the metal tip of the tape dispenser against his nose thoughtfully. "For one thing, it's out-of-the-ordinary. Not something you exactly want to tell your gardening club buddies when your discussing what you're offspring have been up to lately. And it's dangerous, to boot."

"Dangerous?" interjected Maddy, eyes growing wider.

"Well, yeah, Mom. You knew that. I'd say being a superhero is about as dangerous as jobs can get. Uh, you okay, Mom?"

"Oh, dear. What I meant to say, Bobby, is if you have a love by the name of Lance or Geordi or even Piotr, I'm still your mother and I love you." 

ZZZZZZZZOP! The measuring tape snapped into the dispenser. 

"I'm not gay, Mom."

"But if you were, I am your mother and I want you to be happy and I want you to feel comfortable bringing your loves home."

Bobby looked over at the window, where his father feigned not to watch.

"You really didn't come out here because of dad?"

"Really, dear." She squeezed his arm and turned to go back inside. 

"My dad has all these plans for improvements on the house--"

"And the inactivity is driving him crazy."

"Driving us crazy, too. There's models and blue-prints everywhere."

Warren chuckled.

Bobby sighed, "And Mom thinks I'm gay."

"I know." 

"How do you know?"

"Warren and I talk all the time. Why, he just called the other day and-- he sent those roses, by the way."

"The yellow ones from two weeks ago?"

"Three weeks, dear. Why do you look so shocked? He'd come by to see how your father was doing, and had stayed for dinner."

"War?"

"We're friends, dear."

"Warren and Betsy came over for dinner?"

"Is she that nice young lady with a lovely English accent who's living with him?"

"You met Betsy? Betsy had dinner in this house? With Dad?

"What do you mean 'with Dad'? I live here, don't I?"

"Betsy and Warren?"

"Is Betsy that Chinee purple-haired girl we met that Thanksgiving, when Scotty Summers and Jean Grey got engaged?" Bobby's dad called over.

"I think her name is Betsy," replied Maddy.

Bobby nodded dumbly. 

"No, she hasn't been over for dinner. She's never been able to come when he has."

"War?"

"He has the most beautiful manners, Bobby. I didn't think anyone sent flowers as a thank you for stuffed peppers and brisket. Close your mouth, dear, we're friends. As I was saying, Warren called the other day for you. He asked that you please call him back."

"I talked to Warren today!"

"See if you can't get him to bring that Chinee girlfriend of his, next time he comes over for dinner. Can't help what she is, but she's as good-looking going as she is coming, and that's something."

"Willie!" 

"She's cuter than that Tanuki girl you were dating." 

"TA. NA. KA." Bobby gritted.

"They related?"

"Opal Tanaka is Japanese, dear. Betsy Braddock is a citizen of the United Kingdom."

"Figures. That Tonaki girl was short and her fanny was as flat as her face, if you ask me."

"Willie!"

"Are you having an affair with my mom?"

Hank and Warren exchanged looks.

Warren said, "I've been meaning to tell you--"

Hank, "It's really that she's a lovely woman, Bobby, and if Warren hadn't snapped her up first -" 

"Just call me 'dad'!"

"--because she's the cat's miao."

The joke was an old one, and the Hank-Warren double-team was very familiar to Bobby. Usually, Bobby did his best not to laugh. It was his mother's fault. She looked a lot better now than she did when he was kid. She'd gone from Bobby's mommy to Maddy Hayes over the course of a summer, right before he and Opal Tanaka became really serious-- back when Bobby had still been in X-Factor. He'd been upset and embarrassed by the transformation in his zaftig but diminutive mom. Through eating right and exercise, his comfortable, comforting, huggable mom looked nothing like the woman who used to peel frozen grapes for him when he was blue and clean up his sick when he was sick. She was slim and appallingly busty and very blond.

Blonder than Season 3 Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And very few of Bobby's friends could deal with it gracefully.

Once they had picked their mouths off the floor, Hank and Warren had run with it. The object of the game varied, but the most points were given for tricking Bobby into saying some variation of 'get off my mom!'

In which case, Hank might reply, "Robert! Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?" And Warren could gasp, and wheeze in precise outrage, "I. Love. Your. Mother. More importantly, I respect your mother. My God. Sharper than a serpent's tooth, Drake, is a disrespectful son."

Scott would sit with them at Billie's on Main Street, evil humor leaking past his red shades while he pretended not to enjoy Bobby's discomfort.

It was good to sit with Hank and Warren at Billie's 1890 Saloon, but Scott wasn't there to cut Hank and Warren's borderline bawdy humor by slamming his foot against the bench. Scott wasn't there with his chin in his hand, covering his mouth with the side of it when Bobby's outrage became particularly eloquent.

But Bobby asked, "Warren, are you having an affair with my mom?" with worry, and little darting glances at Hank. And Warren's forehead and blond hair made interlocking little puzzle pieces and sincerity washed out the mockery and he said, "No.

And Bobby sighed and leaned back in his chair before bouncing back up and alternating one-eyed stares at his two best friends.

"You," he said to Hank, "What's it like for you back at the mansion and how is life there and--" switched eyes, "You, tell me about you, Warren Worthington, and how long have you been eating dinners with my parents and how did you manage to eat my mother's brisket?" 

Home. The word should have been like a caress, with the airy, dreamy opening, ho- and the closed, satisfied-- me at the end. A very fitting word, home. English was one of the few languages that differentiated between house and home. Which was why, in English, you could say poetic- but perfectly true-things about people being your home, a little bit of romanticism that other languages denied you. In French, for example, you had a house, or you could be _chez_ yourself, but you couldn't just be _home_. 

Kitty had most of her important people-- those that weren't dead or lost in the timestream-- _chez elle_, but the word home still seemed very cold and distant, seemed to no longer apply to the mansion.

Of course, these self-indulgent reflections were usually an indication it was time get the hell out of bed. Kitty rolled, willing herself out of bed, but instead toppled with the covers, and lay on the floor staring at the ceiling.

"Up," said a brisk, imperious voice. Kitty glanced towards her door, to see Storm standing there, hands on her hips.

"Do I have to?" 

"It is nine o'clock."

Kitty moaned. "That's not late."

"You did ask me to wake you at nine." 

"I meant eleven."

A pause, then softly but with a edged undertone, "You are brooding?"

Kitty sat up quickly. "No, no. Not at all. I'll get dressed." 

Ororo sat on the bed, and Kitty thought she was going to stay to make sure that Kitty indeed got up and dressed, like she were some unruly child. But Storm rubbed her palm thoughtfully with her thumb, and said, "The others have been put to work, too. Rogue and Charles are working on a new training schedule." All her attention seemed suddenly focused on her palm. "I thought if I finally got everyone to work, it would improve the tone of the place but I think--" Her hands curled around each other, tightened, "Is it just me, Kitten, or is everyone very afraid?" 

Kitty pulled out a pair of jeans. "Sad, yes. But afraid? Not that I've noticed."

"Surely you can feel it." 

"Huh. I'm not quite sure I know what you mean," she admitted, pulling on her jeans, which had last been washed about a year ago. They were comfier that way.

"I do not know how to explain it better. It is not right, Kitten."

"I'd think not," agreed Kitty, slipping her bra on under her huge nightshirt.

Ororo looked despairingly at her, and shook her head slightly.

"Hey," said Kitty brightly, turning towards her closet and pulling off her shirt, "I hear Forge is courting you again." Storm blinked. "How's that going?" 

"Ah... Better than my attempt to confide in you." 

Kitty's head appeared above the black T-shirt she was slipping on, and she smiled at Ororo. "Aw, I'm sorry. I didn't realize I was playing confidante, 'Ro. I guess it's natural there should be fear in the air, all things considered. All you can do is not breathe in too deeply."

She sat down beside Storm, and hugged her. Storm put one hand to Kitty's shoulder, but otherwise remained unmoving. "The truth of the matter is, this isn't a happy time, and it's going to be that way for awhile. You can't do anything about that, 'Ro. I know you want to move heaven and earth to make everything work, but some things only time can do. As long as we X-Men stick together, we can get through this."

"Katherine, did you just recycle a sentence from every pep-talk you have ever been given?"

"Only a couple. Honestly, Storm, you can't worry so much."

Storm's eyes seemed to say, You wanna bet? But she smiled with her mouth. "'As long as we stick together?'"

"I just woke up, Storm," Kitty said, grinning to soften any edge. "Work with me here." 

"And your work, how is that progressing?"

"About as well as yours," Kitty said and pointed at her water-stained ceiling.

"How felicitous," Ororo replied. Kitty snorted.

Ororo said, "You'll do your best. You always do."

Kitty put her cheeks in her hands and groaned. "A few nights ago, Rogue and I wrecked a million-dollar satellite." 

"Did it belong to anyone we know?"

Kitty scrunched her face, nodding.

"Ah, well. I suppose there's nothing for it?"

Kitty shook her head. 

"Hopefully they won't trace it back to us." To her and Kitty's surprise, Ororo kissed the younger woman on the cheek. Ororo stood. "I trust you to work your wizardry, Katherine." She drifted out of the room, and Kitty watched after her, once again feeling quite incapable of getting up, much less getting to work. 

-0-


	6. Five

-5-  
  
Wind lashed the air of Salem Center, New York. A  
weeping fog cut visibility and left a thin layer of wet  
over every outdoor surface.  
  
In the attic of the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning,  
Ororo Monroe woke from a fitful sleep on a king-sized  
futon littered with official-looking documents and manila  
folders. Papers rustled and wrinkled as she pushed her  
chest away from the futon with one arm. Before her  
tired eyes could blink their cloudy irises clear, she had  
reached for her portable telephone on the bedside table.  
She miscalculated, knocking the phone from the stand.  
Her other hand shot out and grabbed the phone before it  
fell to the ground.  
  
Small drops of rain pattered the skylight above Ororo's  
bed.  
  
From memory, Ororo punched a long number into the  
phone. It rang ten times before an answering machine  
picked up the line. Scott Summer's recorded voice was  
still familiar and she closed her eyes against tears as  
she'd done the many times she'd tried reaching Jean  
before. He sounded precise, exacting. Humorless.  
  
"You've reached the answering machine of Mr. and Mrs.  
Jean Summers - '  
  
'Grey-Summers!' Jean's recorded voice yelled.  
  
Scott paused, laughed a dry, joyous laugh and  
continued with an audible smile. "Leave a message.  
We're the Grey-Summerses. We'll get back to you  
eventually. If at all."  
  
And in the background Jean said, "Scott, did y -" and the  
machine cut it off. There were many beeps indicating  
that the recording tape was full.  
  
There was a beep and Ororo said in a tight, sleep-  
frogged voice, "It's Ororo!" before the call was  
disconnected.  
  
Ororo frowned, placed the phone in the cradle, shoved  
files and folders off of the bed and hugged her pillow to  
her face. Sighing deeply she said, "Goddess, be with  
her."  
  
Between worries, the sole leader of the X-Men, the  
woman bearing the codename Storm, managed to fall  
back to sleep as rain turned into snow.  
  
*  
  
Early in the morning, when day had barely dyed the sky  
with gray, Kitty went down to the basement. She was  
dressed in her super-comfy jeans, knock-around-boots  
that had become an indeterminate color long-ago but  
were still watertight, and a faded-black, long-sleeved,  
Thinsulate lined T-shirt. She took the drop tube to the  
lowest level of the Institute.  
  
As she fell, she tried to catch her reflection in the  
gleaming, scrubbed metal walls of the tube. They  
looked much the same as the main elevator doors had  
when she'd first come to the Institute - then Xavier's  
School for Gifted Youngsters - as a thirteen year-old  
girl. Her reflection looked just as distorted and strange.  
  
Kitty touched ground lightly, her knees bending and her  
mass of curls flopping into her face. She slid the drop  
tube hatch open without a sound. She remembered that  
when she'd first entered the high-security level of the  
School, her legs had been shaking so hard that she'd  
been sure she would pee her pants.  
  
She'd clasped her hands together and smiled while  
following the Professor to the Danger Room where her  
mutant powers were tested for the very first time ever.  
Four years later, here she was, with a tool belt hitched  
around her waist, strolling through secured areas like  
she was in the rumpus room of her mother's house in  
Oak Park.  
  
Things changed and she didn't mind change even if she  
didn't exactly enjoy the people who came along with it.  
Scott was dead; Storm was weird - again, but that was  
leadership stress - again; she wasn't in love with Piotr  
Rasputin - if she ever had been (some days she wasn't so  
sure); Wolverine didn't scare her anymore, and heck,  
neither did Kurt, whose codename couldn't suit him  
less in her eyes - he neither crawled nor was a demon-like  
denizen of the night. He was handsome and she loved  
him like a brother. As for the professor, well, if she could  
keep from bashing his pointy head that made her a real  
grown-up.  
  
"You've come a long way, baby," Kitty muttered. Now,  
if she could keep from strangling the professor all  
would be right socially.  
  
The safety hatch to the Morlock tunnels beneath Xavier  
grounds was behind a pile of rubble. A maintenance  
robot trundled to it just as Kitty punched in the code  
disarming the security protocols.  
  
She phased through the lock and turned on her Mag-light  
as soon she entered the tunnel.  
  
Studying a map by Mag-light, Kitty headed east, her hand  
grazing the wall. She looked to where the cameras were  
when she passed them, and made a mental note to  
service them.  
  
She followed the path she'd marked out on the map, the  
one that led to the former cold house. Unfortunately,  
where there should be a door, there was a blank wall.  
She passed the recess in the stone several times until she  
stopped, closed her eyes, and walked straight where she  
was supposed to go.  
  
"Ow!!" she yelled, covering her forehead with her hands.  
  
She faced the unyielding stone, studying it, wondering  
if she was looking at vibranium and why there were  
security measures in effect that she didn't know about.  
  
"Hunh," she finally said. "I know there's a cave down  
here somewhere."  
  
She shone the flashlight at her feet, knelt, and rubbed the  
dirt between her fingers. It was damp.  
  
I'm gonna have to look at the original maps again, she  
thought. I need volunteers.  
  
*  
  
Thanks to her ninja training, Kitty could be stealthy  
without using her phasing power to make herself  
intangible. More importantly, she had a devil of a  
good time sneaking through the sleeping underbrush  
of the grounds. But Wolverine had trained her and  
she wasn't trying all that hard. It was all she could  
do not to laugh as she watched him waiting for her  
to appear. He drew a cigar from his mustard and  
black plaid shirt. A 'snikt' sounded as one of his  
adamantium claws sliced out of the bristly back of  
his hand.  
  
The gleaming blade loped off the end of his cigar.  
  
Kitty braced her hand on the cold, rough trunk of a  
convenient spruce and popped her head into view.  
  
"Wolvie?"  
  
Wolverine glanced at his protege sidewise, pausing in  
the middle of lighting his cigar. Kitty hadn't called him  
that in a long time. "Yeah, Punkin'?"  
  
She scrunched her nose; her cheeks rosy with surprise.  
He hadn't called her that in a long time. His tender  
delivery clashed with his rough appearance, genuine  
Canadian roughneck what with all his hair, the steel of  
his flame blue eyes, his biting nose, craggy cheekbones  
and massive build. His eyes, though, usually so  
shadowed, were clear with something like pain. It  
could be any number of things behind that accepting,  
stoic gaze, tinged as it was with longing. One of which  
could be Jean.  
  
"How 'bout you write a check?" She waggled her  
eyebrows. "Help the school out."  
  
"How 'bout you write a check? Girl like you oughtta be  
sittin' on a couple a patents worth a lot o' money 'bout  
now."  
  
Kitty blinked.  
  
Logan squinted.  
  
"Damn it." She slumped; her elbows resting on her jean  
clad thighs, her slim hands crossing at the wrists. "I  
wouldn't be good for it."  
  
He shrugged a shoulder, pinched out the flaming match,  
and puffed on his stogie. She leaned on the stump beside  
him. They were of a height but he dwarfed her. She took  
a deep breath of the rich smoke drifting from his canted  
mouth, exhaled, and let crisp air into her lungs.  
  
"See," Kitty said, more to herself than to him, "if we  
were solvent we could get the water back on and do  
something about our wells like we should've the last  
time they conked out. Or maybe we wouldn't have to be  
solvent."  
  
"You a hydrogeologist now?"  
  
"Do I have to be?"  
  
Bemused, he twisted down a corner of his mouth.  
  
She snorted with impatience. "Breakstone Lake," she  
jerked her head in its direction and raised a finger.  
"Lake in the cavern." She raised a second finger. She  
splayed her hands in the air, wiggled them and hunched  
her shoulder. "We've got water. We just need to pipe it  
into the . . . pipes."  
  
"You clear this with Chuck?"  
  
"The professor's headin' out. The Skrull mutants have  
been really helpful but they've gotta get off-world. Need  
to find their own homeworld and they need guidance  
doing it." She sighed. "He's got other mutants to train.  
Apparently, they *really* need him." She tried not to  
sound bitter.  
  
A branch snapped under the weight of snow. Only  
Logan heard it fall into drift-covered hillock of leaves.  
  
Kitty sat a little straighter, blinking while her lips  
thinned. The burly arm nearest her shifted suspiciously  
and she fixed Logan with a stoic glare. It stopped  
moving. He blew a smoke ring, put the hand that held  
the smoking cigar on the stump beside her. She looked  
down at it, looked a question at him. He nodded, most  
slightly. She took it from his hand and examined it,  
glistening end to burning end.  
  
"Didn't you give these up?" she asked.  
  
"Yep."  
  
She handed it back to him. He puffed on it.  
  
Her shoulder docked against his arm; then, she nestled  
close, closer.  
  
"We've survived without him," she said, staring at their  
breath, so white in the air. "Despite him."  
  
Wolverine's eyebrows twitched upward at that.  
  
He smoked. She inhaled.  
  
She didn't ask about Jean. Didn't ask about anything and  
he didn't say a word.  
  
  
*  
  
It was another gorgeous day in Port Jefferson, New  
Jersey, and Bobby had decided that it was in his best  
interest to spend most of it under the icy blue skies, lit  
as they were by the sharp-edged sun that merrily failed  
to warm the frigid outdoors.  
  
Snowboard under his arm, Bobby was half-way down  
the stairs when the voices reached a volume he could  
hear. It was impossible to make out most of what was  
being said, but the swear words were unmistakable.  
  
"Fuck, Maddy. What the hell were you thinking? Do you  
realize-" There was a soft, somewhat weary-sounding  
interjection, a mumble at this distance, then a snippy,  
condescending reply. Stopping only to prop his  
snowboard against the wall, Bobby retreated as softly  
as possible up the staircase. The voices seemed to  
grow louder in proportion to the increase in distance,  
though, and he found himself retreating a few more  
steps into the bathroom.  
  
The bathroom door didn't lock; it never had. He sat on  
the floor with his back pressed against the door to keep it  
shut. A bathroom without a lock was a better sanctuary  
than a bedroom with one. People were more wary of  
entering an occupied bathroom than their son's  
bedroom. The familiar tones could still be heard  
through the door, and his stomach knotted in response,  
but he could no longer make out any words. Not even  
four-letter ones.  
  
He hugged his knees, automatically falling into the  
same old position. His eyes traced the cracks in the  
ceiling, but either the cracks had changed, or his  
eyes had, because he could no longer find in them the  
pictures he had thought to be so distinctive as a  
child. The tiles used to have pictures, too, but they  
had been redone.  
  
There was the drip-drip-drip of the faucet, which  
pounded on his brain like he was being subjected to  
Chinese water torture. He considered doing something  
about it, but, for some inscrutable reason, decided  
against it. Maybe he just felt more comfortable  
keeping his back to the door.  
  
The voices were subsiding gradually. He looked down at  
himself, and the part of him that had actually grown  
up was surprised to be seeing himself here again,  
sitting like this, listening to the angry voices  
through the door. That part of his brain told him to  
stop being an idiot, stand up for God's sake, but the  
habits of childhood won over.  
  
Until he noticed that he was alternating gnawing his lip  
with biting his cheek in fury.  
  
How dare they, he thought.  
  
"You have each other, you jerks," he said aloud.  
"Least you can do is be *grateful*."  
  
He stood, grabbed the bathroom door handle to do something, BUT he didn't  
know what.  
  
There was a moment of silence, and he thought he heard  
a door slam. He wasn't sure, so he waited a few more  
minutes.  
  
He opened it quickly, marched out and barreled down  
the stairs, his chin off-center as he was sucking on his  
cheek.  
  
"Mom?" He called when he reached the bottom stair.  
He clung to the banister arm, swinging his body out and  
called, "Dad?"  
  
The front door was slightly open. It bumped against the  
frame. Bobby dropped off the stair, closed the door  
and walked through the living room.  
  
He could hear his mother's voice, reassuringly soft  
though a tad distressed. Perhaps his dad hadn't left  
as Bobby had thought. He stood in the kitchen a  
moment, and listened intently.  
  
"No, no. Don't say that.... I just don't know what to  
do sometimes when... Yes, right." And then a bleak,  
"I love you."  
  
She was on the phone. She sobbed and  
said it again. "Yes. Always. Forever."  
  
Bobby went quietly back upstairs. He sat in his  
bedroom, turned on the computer and logged in  
and with desultory actions began to check his email  
He'd deleted several unsolicited advertisements,  
with the comments, "spam sucks" accompanying each  
press of the 'delete' key before running across an  
email from an old Dartmouth friend - R. Tolliver  
Robb.  
  
"Rob Robb, you louse," Bobby said with affection.  
"What do you want now?"  
  
He opened it and read:  
  
"Drake, if you're still wasting your life part-timing  
as a CPA in your dad's tiny, insignificant company,  
get off your ass and call me. Corcione and I started  
a day-trading firm and we're making money up the  
ass. 631.473.0068  
  
"Catch the wave, baybee."  
  
  
"R. Tolliver Robb  
Senior Accounts  
TC&A Securities  
650 Chestnut St  
Cedarhurst NY 11516  
tel: 516.473.0000  
fax: 516.473.0001  
http://www.tcasecurities.com"  
  
  
Daytrading, Bobby thought. Good way to go broke in  
25 minutes or less. But he clicked on the link and called.  
  
*  
  
In the basement, all six dryers and washers were going,  
thumping and swishing as clothing and linens were  
sloshed and tossed. Sarah, shivering slightly, lay curled  
in the corner of long couch, a ragged yet surprisingly  
comfortable piece of furniture. She grunted as pain flared  
in her ribs and solar plexus and blazed. Stressed muscles  
in her torso and back gave off the sick achy feeling she  
got after only the most brutal physical exertions.  
  
She'd heard other women complain about cramps,  
sometimes. Seen them hunch over, put their hands over  
their stomachs, whine a bit about the pain. Ha. Pain  
made you strong or it crushed you. Today, it wasn't  
making her strong.  
  
She took a deep breath in anticipation, right before her  
body turned into one huge cramp. She sensed a  
*crunch*, felt trapezius muscles tear as a bone spur  
began to work its way out of her body. An off-balance  
washer began to jump and shudder, but she couldn't  
hear anything above the deafening roar of blood rushing  
through her body.  
  
Yeah, I have bones popping out of me, but I'm not  
gonna break.* She had seen people go hysterical or  
even faint from injuries involving protruding bones.  
It made her want to laugh; sometimes she had.  
  
This was bad. As bad as puberty, when her hormones  
had kicked her mutation into high gear and out of her  
control.  
  
The blood roar abated, her body relaxed. She counted  
breaths, listened to the thumps and muted splashings of  
the working machinery, the banging of the off-balance  
washer, and heard the soft footsteps of an X-Man  
entering the laundry area.  
  
The lights overhead snapped into gray-hued life.  
  
She groaned, and then realized that the X-Man would  
probably interpret the noise as an expression of  
weakness, instead of the expression of annoyance it  
was meant to be. She straightened out and fixed a surly  
expression over her anguished one. Her eyes narrowed  
against shock at the fresh onslaught of nausea that  
accompanied her new position.  
  
She looked over to see which X-Men had invaded her  
Privacy - it was Rogue who was looking from Marrow  
to the noisy washer.  
  
"Hey," Rogue said sympathetically. "How ya doin'?"  
  
Marrow just raised her eyebrows. So much energy was  
going into not whimpering, she didn't have any left  
with which to think up an answer.  
  
"I mean, ya feelin' okay?"  
  
"Fine," Marrow bit out. She stood, stepped over the  
tumbled hopper of magazines and newspapers that were  
scattered between the couch and the machines, crossed  
to the troublesome washer, and jerked opened its door,  
silencing it.  
  
"Right," Rogue countered evenly. "Pain makes you  
strong."  
  
"Stronger 'n you," Marrow said under her breath. She  
used her clean hand to redistribute wet linens.  
  
"It's okay if ya don't want to talk to me. Lord knows,  
Ah do my best to not talk to other X-Men about things."  
  
Marrow turned to face Rogue, and leaned against the  
washer. Rogue smiled slightly. "But, about the X-Men -  
you can't fool 'em, Sarah. No point in pretending, 'cause  
no one is falling for it. Ah speak from experience."  
  
"That's great. Glad we had this chat. Bye."  
  
"Like Ah said, no one's falling for it."  
  
"Would you fall for a bone spike in your throat?"  
Marrow growled, her hand over her fourth left rib.  
  
Rogue forcibly straightened out her smile. "Ah'll stop  
botherin' you now. Just wanted to point that out and that  
the school's here to help us students manage our  
powers."  
  
Marrow snorted roughly. "You my example?"  
  
Rogue's smile became strained. "Ah'm just hopin' ya  
feel better soon. Or when you feelin' better, you come  
up to the professor so we can see what can be done."  
  
Rogue glanced at the colorful splash of magazines,  
newspapers, and puzzle books on the floor as she passed  
through the doorway.  
  
The moment Rogue was out of view, Marrow gave in  
and emitted a body-wracking sob. Two tears, grown fat  
from standing in her eyes, raced each other down  
Marrow's cheeks. She quickly took hold of herself again,  
suppressing any further tears before things got out of  
control. The pain was abating. She'd had worse spells,  
and even they hadn't lasted that long. She washed her  
hands in the laundry sink, dried them, and began to  
organize the spilled books and magazines. Her teeth  
ground together but her eyes were dry.  
  
"Sarah?" Soft, heavily accented, masculine.  
  
Of course, that described half of the X-Men's voices. But  
this was the softest, certainly. Didn't grate on your  
nerves like Rogue's stupid hick talk.  
  
"Hey," said Marrow, glancing up at Colossus. Would he  
go, and then another person come, and then another and  
another until she finally broke into a sobbing heap and  
babbled about childhood traumas, just so they'd stop?  
  
"Are you in too much pain to put up with a little  
conversation right now?"  
  
"You soft in the head?" she snapped.  
  
"Hmm."  
  
Rogue's word echoed in Marrow's mind. *Not  
fooling anyone.* Marrow had long ago decided she  
preferred the men to the women. It was a close call,  
seeing as how X-males got her people massacred and the  
X-females ripped her heart out, but what it came down  
to was that the males were less likely to ask searching  
questions about her feelings. "I was going on a drive.  
To search for inspiration. Would you care to accompany  
me?"  
  
Marrow scowled at this bit of kindness, and was  
debating whether to give into temptation and agree, or  
reply scathingly, when Kitty rushed into the room. An  
endless stream of X-Men, indeed. *They are trying to  
break you.*  
  
"Hey, Sarah," Shadowcat said breathlessly; then: "Piotr,  
I need, need, *need* your help. There has been a slight  
mishap involving large, heavy pieces of the mansion,  
cluttering our entrance to the Morlock tunnels."  
  
Colossus glanced quickly, covertly, at Marrow. "Sarah  
and I were about to go out," he began. The look he gave  
Kitty was pregnant with meaning, Marrow suspected,  
but she had no idea what sort of meaning. Probably bad.  
For her.  
  
"Uh, well, uh..." From the look in Shadowcat's eyes, the  
lump of mushy grey matter in her skull was trying to  
translate Colossus' hidden message. Marrow liked that  
the shadow-kitten was also confused. "I guess it can  
wait," Kitty said at last.  
  
"Are you sure?" said Colossus softly. Always softly.  
Even when he was angry.  
  
"Positive." Kitty flashed a bright smile, and disappeared  
through the doorway. "I'll get started, and if I get   
stuck, I'll come back to you - or Rogue." Marrow didn't   
hear her walk away, but that could be nosiness on  
Shadowcat's part.  
  
Colossus turned back to Marrow, "I'm afraid I spoke out  
of turn. *Are* you and I about to go out?"  
  
"Fine," she said, sticking out her lower lip. He smiled.  
She remembered. Rogue's words: You can't fool 'em,  
Sarah. No one's falling for it.  
  
"We'll be driving out to the naval yards. I can finish up  
here while you get ready."  
  
Marrow sighed, a sigh of resignation more than anything  
else.  
  
No one was falling for it, hunh?  
  
*  
  
In a section of her workroom clear of Forge's stuff, Kitty  
stood over a partially unrolled sheaf of dusty, faded  
schematics of the Xavier institute. She pressed a yellow  
bandana over her mouth while she studied documents  
that dated from the original construction of the house by  
the light of an adjustable fluorescent lamp.  
  
"Hrm," Kitty said, her finger tracing the location of the  
spring fed cold house which used to be by the outdoor  
kitchen which was now - sheets of paper rustled and slid  
as she moved the old designs aside and examined the  
grounds' map - the chapel cemetery?  
  
The bandanna fell from Kitty's hand as she bent forward  
while reaching for the fluorescent lamp. She brought the  
lamp and her head closer to the old schematics. *Where  
was the well?* There had to have been a well for water  
back then. And it wasn't by the cold house... Kitty's  
finger, bitten back nail and dry cuticle, traced around and  
around until she did indeed spot the well.  
  
"Bingo!" she cried.  
  
"What's this got to do with Skrull code?" Forge asked at  
her shoulder, causing her to jump. His breath smelled  
like fresh coffee. She glared at him. He didn't notice.  
  
"You shouldn't sneak up on people," she grumped,  
scrolling closed the designs. His large, fine-boned, red-  
skinned hand flattened a corner open.  
  
"1855," he read from the upper left hand corner. "We've  
got the architectural designs for the Institute going back  
to the late eighteen hundreds on database."  
  
"Don't like ESRI," Kitty pronounced but he was already  
walking away from her and heading towards his  
temporary workstation, complete with desk and bank of  
flat screen computers and ergonomic pullout everything.  
His black hair, longer and thicker than hers, snaked  
down his back from a leather-cinched ponytail.  
  
He favored her with a dubious look.  
  
"I don't like ESRI," Kitty insisted.  
  
"That mean we're not working today?" Forge asked,  
hitting power buttons and flipping toggles in rows as he  
turned on his system. "You're the one who called me in  
to help you with security."  
  
Kitty's nostrils flared but she did not share that the  
Professor had suggested she call Forge and speed up the  
process.  
  
Strings of code appeared on the central screen of Forge's  
computer bank. He stood with his hands planted on the  
pullout keyboard drawer. He squinted as he scanned the  
code as quickly as it appeared.  
  
"We've got this water problem," Kitty said.  
  
"Took a shower earlier this morning," Forge answered  
turning off his system.  
  
"City water. We can't afford city water."  
  
He stared at her.  
  
"Not for long anyway. Have you considered making a  
donation to the school yet?"  
  
"Pryde," he took a deep breath. The words that followed  
were measured, even. He was being patient, and this  
only made Kitty's face contort in annoyance. "I'm here  
for one reason, one reason only, and specifically at your  
request. And, you're no hydrogeologist." He ducked  
under his desk. He was a bendy one, managing to fit his  
length beneath it though his legs went on and on against  
the floor, ending in duct-taped cowboy boots.  
  
Kitty could hear the 'fsst' noise of an air duster. Forge  
cleaned his station before and after every use. It was  
wild. Fsst! Fsst! Fsst! Before and after he powered  
down.  
  
"Forge!" she yelled. The fssting noise stopped. His foot  
began to bend back and forth.  
  
How was she going to put this? "You've built a house  
from scratch before, right?"  
  
Forge's foot stilled.  
  
Kitty winced. Forge crabbed out from under his desk.  
Pens tumbled from his chambray shirt pocket and he  
reached for them. When he lifted his head to address  
Kitty it was doubly red. Kitty told herself it was from  
blood pooling in his features but she knew better.  
  
"With running water, right? And, and --"  
  
"Storm told you."  
  
She nodded.  
  
"I've built a house before. From scratch. Not the same  
thing you want to do." He gripped the back of his chair,  
punctuated that movement by extending and retracting  
his chin.  
  
"I'll be down in the tunnels. Don't test those security  
protocols until I get back."  
  
"We're on a schedule," Forge answered, his mechanical  
hand holding the chair steady while he lowered himself  
into it. Kitty spared him a glance, noted the breadth of  
his shoulders, the size of his arms, the fluid yet massive  
grace of them and shook her head. Storm had her  
reasons, but Kitty very much doubted that they went  
beyond the aesthetic. Falling in love with Forge that  
was. Not being in love with Forge anymore - and, oh  
god she hoped so, well - Kitty got that just fine.  
  
"What are you saying?"  
  
"I don't have time to waste. So why don't you pull out  
what *you* wanted *us* to solve, and if I have the time,  
we'll figure out you water problem later."  
  
"But the water is -"  
  
"Not my concern."  
  
Kitty covered her eye with her hand. Her fingers  
drummed on her forehead as she counted to three - then  
counted to ten.  
  
"Sure," she said lightly. "Whatever you say."  
  
But her cheeks were tensed and her mouth was clenched.  
  
* * *  
  
On his way to Manhattan, chauffeured in the stretch  
Lincoln Continental that his father had acquired before  
his death, Warren Worthington III received an  
unexpected call on his secured line.  
  
He had an open briefcase beside him, and an open  
contract on his lap, one that didn't require immediate  
attention. He locked it into his briefcase and accepted the  
call.  
  
"Mr. Worthington," spoke a brusque, professional voice.  
  
"Travers?" he asked, straightening out. There was a  
pause. "What's happened?"  
  
Travers wasn't exactly an emotional man, but he didn't  
manage to keep the annoyance out of his voice when he  
spoke. "Ms. Grey isn't in Anchorage. We lost her at  
Minneapolis."  
  
Ah, the annoyance was for himself and his people, then.  
Warren's brow furrowed, trying to keep up. "She flew  
there from Chicago?"  
  
"Hitchhiked, sir."  
  
Warren's eyes widened and he sat forward. "From  
O'Hare?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
Warren dragged a hand through his thick, neat blond  
hair. It immediately sprang apart from its slick coif and  
into tousled waves. "What do you intend to do?"  
  
"Find her." It was almost a growl. "My time is free if I  
don't manage to. All of our time." This time he did  
growl. No doubt it was directed at which ever people he  
had working with him.  
  
"Of course," said Warren. The man was obviously  
ashamed. Good. "Contact me immediately if anything  
comes up."  
  
He broke the connection and leaned back with a sigh. He  
was annoyed, of course. He demanded the best from his  
subordinates, but perhaps having normal humans keep  
up with a telepathic, grief-stricken X-Woman was too  
much to expect. Travers had come highly recommended  
and had seemed to have some super-human abilities  
himself. But he was no Jean Grey. That was *definitely*  
too much to expect.  
  
Warren sat back in the plush seat, watching the world go  
by and wondering what Jean could be doing. When she,  
he, and her late husband, Scott, had been children together  
at the original Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, he'd  
done his best to get between Scott and Jean. Scott had  
helped Warren's cause, but Jean had set her cap on Scott  
and eventually, despite Scott's utter-Scottness, they had  
come together. Warren had accepted that he was a close  
second.  
  
Eventually, he'd come to rely upon the constancy of Scott  
and Jean's love for one another. As one of her best  
friends, Warren knew of some of their difficulties, but  
from his perspective, Jean and Scott's relationship had  
gone from strength to strength, aside from that brief  
time when Scott had believed her dead and married a  
woman who more than resembled her in physical  
appearance.  
  
Even when Jean had discovered the many truths Scott  
and Warren had neglected to tell her - that Scott was  
  
married and had a son, even when Jean had left Scott  
and their small circle of almost-family, Warren had been  
certain that one day Jean would return to Scott. She  
forgave him sooner than she forgave Scott, which had  
surprised Warren. But she'd understood that he'd had  
faith in her rightness with Scott, even when she gave up  
on it.  
  
Smoothing his hair back, he reached for his telephone  
and rang the penthouse he shared with his current lady,  
Elisabeth Braddock, in Manhattan. The videophone  
rang and rang. He stared at the dark screen with his hand  
massaging his cleft chin. His eyes burned as he willed  
Betsy to appear on the screen.  
  
"Hello," said her voice over the sound of a shower. The  
screen remained blank.  
  
"Betsy, we still on for tonight?"  
  
"Warren!" He could hear the smile in Betsy's voice and  
it made him relax in turn. "Warren," she purred,  
sounding very posh in addition to terribly improper.  
She'd probably been talking to England - her twin Brian  
or his wife, Meggan. In the background he could hear  
the echoey splashes of water falling on marble.  
  
"Turn on the video, lover," he coaxed.  
  
"But my modesty, Warren."  
  
As former model, Betsy had no modesty. But in  
actuality, she was as comfortable in a carelessly draped  
bathsheet as her own enigmatic expression. She did  
enjoy Warren's eyes on her, almost as much as she  
appreciated his hands. If she was keeping the vidphone  
image off that meant she was up to secret, feminine  
things. Rituals that involved pots of esoteric waxes and  
ironed muslin cloths, dainty scissors, gleaming tweezers  
and silky brushes. Rituals that were secret and  
unimaginably feminine; things that he was manifestly  
not allowed to watch.  
  
"You busy?" he asked, with a mild leer.  
  
"Wouldn't you like to know," she teased, her voice  
dropping a few notes. She turned off the shower and  
there was a clink of metal on stone. Tweezers, scissors  
or clippers, Warren surmised. He pursed his lips and   
shook his head in appreciation, then chuckled.  
  
He smiled a little, stretching across the plush seat of his  
surroundings and undoing his tie.  
  
"Warren, are you with me?" Betsy voice was crisp  
  
"If you had the video on, you'd know."  
  
She laughed gaily.  
  
"How's dinner at The Grill sound for tonight?" he  
asked.  
  
"No can do, luv. But I'll take those reservations."  
  
The water shut off and the Betsy blinked into view.  
Water dotted her smooth face and her hair was hidden in  
a large blue towel as she rubbed a shimmery lotion on  
her mellow, dawn-gold skin. Her jaw was full, her chin  
delicately angled. Her lips were elegant and full, their  
curve understated but well defined. Her nose was short  
and bridgeless. Her spirit was evident in the cool glitter  
of her long, sparsely lashed eyes. They lacked an  
epicanthic fold but were shaped like lilies, their color a  
brown so rare it was almost plum. A trail of her dyed-  
purple hair runneled down her neck.  
  
"Meggan's in town. She says because she missed me."  
  
"You're showing her the sights?"  
  
"Perhaps some other time. It turns out some actor  
friends of mine she's fond of are in a movie I  
inadvertently produced. The premiere's this evening and  
I'm taking her."  
  
"That Polish filmmaker? The one who only shoots in  
French?"  
  
"Krzysztof? Heavens, no. No, some girls I worked with  
when I modeled, and so I don't suppose subtitles will be  
a problem. Still, I can only hope Brian's taught his wife  
to read since I saw her last."  
  
She kissed the air at him and stood, walking away from  
the camera.  
  
Of course, she was nude. "Hold on while I switch  
phones," she said over her shoulder.  
  
The screen blanked. Then she were in his - their - the  
bedroom. She was fussing at his bed, laying out clothing  
from what he could tell.  
  
"What film?" Warren asked loudly, watching the shift  
and play Betsy's out-of-focus bottom.  
  
"Don't recall, correctly. Peyote something. Struggling  
models by day, singing 'tavern wenches' by night.  
Tedious, but Meggan is family and we see each other  
infrequently."  
  
Suddenly, Betsy was seated at her vanity, examining  
herself in the mirror. She removed the towel from  
around her head. Her wet hair splashed around her face  
and shoulders in clinging strands.  
  
"Thought you wanted to see me, lover," Warren said,  
wishing he was their to dry her hair.  
  
"I see you now, lover," Betsy smiled, bending her head  
and patting the ends of her hair between folds of blue  
bathsheet. "Wouldn't mind seeing more of you," she  
added slyly, tilting her head and rubbing the back of it  
with the bathsheet. "Aren't you hot in that suit?"  
  
He laughed.  
  
Her neck was long and smooth, lovely to behold, bent as  
it was. Even Betsy's ears, close to her head and  
delicately shaped, were appealing.  
  
"Have you heard from Jean yet?" she asked, changing  
the subject so quickly that Warren frowned.  
  
"No one has."  
  
Her eyes squeezed shut briefly and her full lips  
tightened. "Don't worry so much. She's a formidable  
woman."  
  
"Last time she lost somebody and she went off on her  
own to grieve, it went deadly for billions."  
  
"But it wasn't her, was it?" Betsy asked, finger-combing  
her locks.  
  
"No, it wasn't. But she shouldn't be alone." A line  
appeared between his eyes, and his eyes narrowed  
against the tear-like prickle.  
  
"Don't be so sure she is," Betsy murmured, pumping  
mousse into her hand. "Maybe she needs this time  
away." She massaged fluffy styling product into her hair.  
"To think and to feel what she's thinking and feeling in  
peace."  
  
"She's not that way, Betts. She's never been that way."  
  
"You could be wrong," Betsy replied mildly, all the edge  
coming off her consonants.  
  
"No."  
  
Betsy didn't understand; Scott was Jean's reason; just as  
much as Jean had been his.  
  
Warren only half-watched her style her hair. Occasionally,   
Betsy looked from her reflection to him.  
  
Finally, Warren said, "I didn't know Meggan was  
coming in today. She with Excalibur?"  
  
Slicking shine onto her lips, Betsy hummed a negative,  
"Mmmm, nn-nnh." She shifted the mirror and videophone,  
so that it only gave Warren a view of her shoulder and  
her face's reflection in the mirror in front of her. She  
took up a fine brush and small lacquered box.  
"Warren." The edge in her voice was serrated.  
  
"Right, she had a fight with Brian."  
  
"We don't know that," Betsy replied, brushing color onto  
her eyes. Before his re-interested gaze they became  
deeper, more beautiful, shining. She didn't even look at  
her own reflection; she was doing it while looking at his  
image, all her attention, ravenous attention, he realized,  
on him.  
  
"God, Betts," Warren murmured. "If I was there you'd  
be so late."  
  
Her reflection moistened her lips. Had he blinked he  
would have missed it.  
  
"Later, lover," her lips said.  
  
She rose from the vanity and adjusted the videophone so  
that he could watch as she crossed to his tall bed. She  
lifted filmy stockings into the air, perched on the edge of  
the frame and rolled them on. Her hair got in the way,  
and the videophone camera didn't track well that far, but  
what he could see was almost heart-stopping.  
  
"Come to think of it, I do believe that she and Brian had  
a row," Betsy began conversationally, but there was a  
telltale wobble in her voice as she smoothed on her hose.  
"As much as Meggan can quarrel with anyone."  
  
"She's a sweet one," Warren murmured.  
  
Betsy's eyes looked up from her stockings, traveled that  
room and hooked him right through the phone screen.  
There was a sultry heat in her gaze. "Very much so."  
  
Betsy stood and turned from him, lifting a brief and  
glittering shift from his bed. It was only a few shades  
lighter than her skin. She stepped into it, raised it over  
her legs, hips, waist, slid it over her breasts and fastened   
the clasp around her neck. The dress bared her shoulders   
and back to dip beyond the small of her back. The   
abbreviated skirt was little nothing more than glorified   
beading; the lace borders of her stockings barely  
vanished beneath the hem.  
  
She turned in three-quarter profile, her pose so easy he  
would not have guessed it was calculated for his benefit  
if he hadn't known her so well. Her hair licked down her  
back and arms, and he sighed at the wonder of Betsy  
formally dressed for a movie premiere in the middle of  
winter.  
  
"Say something," she cooed.  
  
He couldn't remember the last time she'd covered her  
essentials so indecently. "I hear it's going to be cold  
out."  
  
"I have a wrap." She stretched sensuously, reaching for  
something on their bed, and retrieved an enormous  
chocker that bordered on the distasteful. It flashed pale  
purple and white with tanzanites and cuts of rock crystal.  
A monstrous topaz, or perhaps a yellow sapphire, maybe  
even a diamond, clung to its center.  
  
"Now that's a look." Warren said as she fastened the  
thing around her neck.  
  
Betsy's teeth were very white as she grinned. "It's a gift  
from Meggan. She and Brian brought it back from some  
universe-or-another.  
  
"You going barefoot?"  
  
"I knew I was forgetting something." Holding onto the  
bed post, Betsy sank to her knees, her skirt rising, her  
thighs parting. She leaned away, stretched her body and  
rooted beside the bed.  
  
"Jesus, Betsy." Then, "*Jesus*, Betsy," as she pulled  
forward a wicked pair of shoes. They had high, spindly  
heels, toes covered in gleaming, nude fabric and thin  
complicated laces that stroked and kissed their way  
around her ankles as she tied them on. She stood, her  
legs looking longer than ever. Her shift shimmied and  
slid over her skin as she walked back to the phone.  
  
"But we had plans." There was no censure in his voice.  
  
She kissed fore- and middle finger. "Chastise me later,"  
and placed a tawny lipstick mark on the screen. Warren  
touched the screen back. They stared at one another,  
then the screen blanked.  
  
Looking out the window, Warren watched New Jersey  
pass by. He thought of Betsy's grace and artifice. How  
was so many different women in one. Of all the X-Men,  
he had the most in common with her, having been transformed  
against his will, body and soul, into a weapon turned against  
the people he loved and the hopes of his heart. Of all women  
he knew, she was the least frightened for him.  
  
Their relationship was troubled and troubling, but pleasurable.  
She cared for him and he for her, but their priorities were  
different. He considered their relationship like a Jaguar -  
expensive, demanding, exhilarating, and in the shop more  
often than not. One day, if he stuck it out, and provided he  
kept pumping effort and time into it, he'd have a high-  
performance vehicle of the likes that would ever challenge,  
never let him down.   
  
He looked forward to falling in love with her again -  
preferably, sometime soon.  
  
There was a sound, an alarming clunk, and the limousine  
slowed to a crawl.  
  
  
*  
  
"GODDAMMNIT!!!" Bobby Drake yelled in the guest  
bedroom, his voice rattling the kitchen ceiling.  
  
Maddy Drake looked up from where she was bent over  
the kitchen sink. Her wet hair clung to her scalp and the  
dye bottle in her left hand had begun to link, staining her  
rubber glove a viscous orange-brown. Whatever was her  
son doing?  
  
"TAKE THAT, VILLAIN! TAKE IT! TAKE IT!  
TAKE ITTTTTTT!!!!!!" Bobby screamed.  
  
"Oh, my word," Maddy snapping off her gloves and  
trotting to his room.  
  
She knocked on his door and opened it before Bobby  
could answer. "Whatever are you doing, Bobby Drake?"  
she asked.  
  
"Hold on, market's gonna close in a bit."  
  
"Market?"  
  
He ignored her, concentrating on sending an email to -  
  
she had to squint to read it Rob T. Robb. What a name!  
  
"What is it, mom?" He asked her. There was a flash of  
something flat in his eyes as he looked at her.  
  
"You've been locked up here all day."  
  
He bit his cheek, hollowing that side of his face. "I  
heard you and dad this morning."  
  
"I am sorry, but it's not that big a house, Robert. Hardly  
a mansion like the one you live in with your friends."  
  
"Right." Her son's pretty eyes, brown in the afternoon  
sunlight shining through his window, were unpleasant to  
look at.  
  
Feeling judged, she blinked and scowled a little. He  
beetled his brow at her.  
  
"And you've been screaming profanity in the privacy of  
your bedroom why?" Maddy asked.  
  
"Daytrading. Also known as 'day-trading' and 'day trading.'"   
  
Maddy didn't laugh.  
  
Bobby continued, "Some friends of mine from Dartmouth  
started a firm and I'm helping them out for the day. Adding  
to my disposable income through the wacky world of online  
trading."  
  
"Does your father know?"  
  
"My father knows all! Actually, no. I had a few dollars  
I started playing with and it turned into, well, y'know that  
cruise you always wanted to take to Alaska?"  
  
Maddy crossed her arms and tilted her head at him.  
"No."  
  
"You can afford to go to Alaska! And Bombay and  
Reykjavik if you want to. But not all at once. There's  
this online travel agency -"  
  
"And you've done this through online gambling  
casinos?"  
  
"Online trading. It's like daytrading, only in the privacy  
of this home," he was actually smiling now. He looked   
as pleased as he did when he'd presented her with mixed   
media art from preschool through grade four - his eyes   
had thawed.  
  
Bemused, she smiled at her grinning son and pinched his  
cheek. She had to grab a lot of it because he'd leaned  
down over the years.   
  
"Well if you're done making money, whyn't you come  
down to the kitchen and help me do my roots?"  
  
"I don't know."  
  
"If there's any left over we can hi-light your hair."  
  
That got him to his feet.  
  
*   
  
Cars sped past the stalled limousine. The chauffeur  
looked immaculate in his gray uniform. His expression  
was slightly sheepish as he fetched his employer's  
attache case from the trunk, then slammed the trunk shut.  
  
Worthington had to laugh at the chauffeur's discomfort.   
Though dressed in a red tracksuit with white piping (his  
wings hidden under the tracksuit jacket), and cross-trainers,  
and a five o'clock shadow highlighting the angularity of  
his chiseled jaw, Worthington looked immaculate as well.  
  
"I'm so truly very sorry, sir."  
  
"Well, don't let it happen again."  
  
"Oh no, sir."  
  
Warren sighed inwardly. Sometimes joking only made  
people more ill at ease.  
  
"Port Jefferson is -"  
  
"Much too far. Another limousine will have arrived by  
- of course, sir."  
  
"We just passed the exit. I'll walk into there. If I  
need anything, I'll use my cell'."  
  
"Yes, sir. But it's *cold*, sir."  
  
Warren missed his usual chauffeur. What was this one's  
name?  
  
"Horribly, terribly cold," said this chauffeur.  
  
"Ah -" Goethe? Warren subvocalized. No, that wasn't  
this chauffeur's name. "The exercise will keep me  
warm." If the unstable molecule undergarment I'm  
wearing doesn't.  
  
"I can't apologize enough, Mr. Worthington."  
  
"It's your first day, Goethke." Yes! "First days are  
notorious." Warren smiled and shouldered his briefcase.  
"I'll see you later, then."  
  
Goethke visibly relaxed, "Oh, thank you, Mr.  
Worthington."  
  
Still smiling, Warren nodded. He slipped on his Van  
Cleef & Arpel shades and headed to the Iceman's house.  
  
*   
  
Great Falls, Montana's international airport only had six  
terminals. Jean got off the plane and checked with the  
airline representative for information regarding her  
connecting flight. The attendant told her she had two and  
a half hours until boarding time - if the weather held.  
  
Jean glanced around at the short corridor, and considered  
the Plexiglas lining it. It was still light outside, it being early  
afternoon, but the day outside looked dreary what with the  
grayish sky and skuzzy snow. The tarmac looked wet and  
the people working out there looked as if they were freezing,  
bundled up as most of them were. When she went to the  
information desk, she meant to inquire about hotel lodging -  
just in case. She didn't relish staking a claim on the brown  
carpeting and using her carry-on as a pillow if her flight  
were snowed in.  
  
She waited in a long line for her turn, glancing at the  
lighted posters advertising Montana attractions. Several  
advertised casinos and other gambling establishments.  
Those in particular caught her eye.  
  
Instead of asking about nearby motels, she heard herself  
say, "Is there a shuttle that goes out to the Magic  
Diamond?"  
  
The complimentary beverages and snacks were good  
after her cash ran out. Whenever she wanted more  
tokens she sat herself down at slot machine next to a  
man.  
  
Most overlooked her faded jeans, the red chamois shirt.  
They'd let their eyes skim past the ring hanging from the  
chain twisted around her neck, linger on the lace edging  
her camisole, her bustline.  
  
She'd say, 'Hi'. Either they'd smile back, or freeze.  
  
She'd reach over into his bucket of coins or trough and  
help herself to a couple of tokens. "For luck," she'd say  
if he protested, and this was really rare. So eventually,  
she'd say, 'for luck' as she reached her hand past their  
leg anyway.   
  
-0- 


	7. Six

-6-  
  
Ororo dreamt of drowning beneath relentless, thin surges of water,  
lit through by bright, sunless sky. She felt like she was choking on  
air while waves, tasteless and without scent, crashed and swirled  
around her clenched hands. She woke awash in the surf of her  
own hair, gasping as she coughed strands out of her mouth.  
  
The tendons of her shoulders and chest stood out against her skin  
in relief stark as lightning in a clear sky.  
  
Now dreams, she thought and pressed her hand hard to her chest,  
shutting her eyes until her ripping heartbeat dropped into a  
bearable rhythm and the adrenaline-rush ebbed. Groaning in relief,  
she opened her eyes and raised them to the dead sky as seen  
beyond the skylight. In the wake of her panic she felt bereft, like a  
hummock of rock bared on a sand bar at low tide.  
  
Disentangling herself from rumpled bedding, Ororo shook her  
head at the bleak turn of her thoughts and blamed it on her troubled  
sleep. The dream had been unusual. The feelings it had deposited  
were not. Fatigue upon waking was only one draining legacy of  
Scott's death. At least it had been neither his fault nor hers. And to  
be sure, they had learned long ago that jobs well done did not  
always yield victory. They had known this and more importantly,  
they had embraced it.  
  
Wrapping this thin comfort around herself, Ororo rose from the  
futon. Taking up the top sheet, she neatly sidestepped the three  
thick folders and the musty journal stacked beside the bed. Labeled  
"EB - Richards", "EB -Xavier" and "EB - McCoy" respectively,  
the folders contained preliminary reports on Betsy Braddock's  
recent transformation. She would reread them later, perhaps when  
her shoulders were less stiff. The journal, one of the pre-cog  
Destiny's volumes, had been the companion of too many nights  
and was welcome to trouble someone else with its portents of  
unavoidable doom.  
  
Spreading her toes, Ororo planted her feet on the floor. Bending  
one knee after the other she spread her arms wide. An unnatural  
breeze swept round the room as she reveled in the motion. The  
sheet she held fluttered and sighed. Her wrist joint sounded  
with a loud and abrupt 'crack' and she grimaced.  
  
"Old, so old before your time."  
  
She bent slowly at the waist until her nose met her knees. The  
sheet draped the floor as her hands slid down her thighs. She  
could hear the sounds of people moving about on the floors below  
and realized that she was holding her breath, waiting for a familiar  
voice or steps.  
  
Twisting the sheet about her body and knotting it neatly between  
her arm and breast, Ororo made her way into the bathroom. She  
studied her reflection blearily as she brushed her teeth. She took  
up her hairbrush and gave her staticy mane several hard licks. The  
tearing sound this produced brought Ororo up short and she  
gentled her strokes, but partway through brushing her hair she lost  
interest in the task and began to clean her brush instead. Red  
stands were threaded through the bristles, gleaming dully among  
white.  
  
Sighing deeply, Ororo exited the bathroom and returned to her  
bed. Sitting, she reached for the phone. A small mark appeared  
on her forehead as she dialed Jean's home in Anchorage. Holding  
the phone between her head and shoulder, she frowned as she  
listened to the dial tone. The knot in the sheet loosened. After the  
thirteenth ring, she hung up and redialed.  
  
As she tightened the slipping knot in her sheet, she remembered  
that she did not give a damn if she were naked or not and stood.  
The phone rang. She put it on speaker and began to pack, stalking  
from armoire to closet to bureau as she selected warm and versatile  
clothing. She rolled pants and sweaters and body-stockings in tidy  
wads and had just begun to arrange her rolled clothing into a  
canvas carry-all designed to fit into the smallest of airplane  
storage spaces when a familiar psychic voice, vibrant but  
unobtrusive, brushed her natural shields.  
  
:ORORO!: sent the professor. :I've been calling you. You are  
preoccupied with something?:  
  
Her many concerns stopped her throat but after a moment, a single  
one rose to prominence and she was able to say, "Jean."  
  
Wordless resignation laced with complex regret presaged his, :Of  
course. She has not returned any of my messages either.:  
  
Ororo zipped shut her carry-all.  
  
:Have you determined the extent to which Reed Richards, Henry's  
and my reports explain the effects of Betsy's most recent  
transformation on her combat performance?:  
  
"No." Ororo replied, uncharacteristically succinct as she unwound  
the sheet from her body.  
  
:How soon can you review her most recent Danger Room sessions?  
Your input is invaluable and I need it as soon as possible:  
  
She straightened the sheet and tucked it under the futon. "I was  
planning on taking a leave of absence, Professor. To look for   
Jean."  
  
Immediately, the color of his thoughts gained opacity and the  
Professor sent, :Between that and the report on the satellite Kitty  
and Rogue destroyed, I doubt you'll be able to leave today.:  
  
Abruptly, Charles' mental presence swirled away, like water down   
a drain. Too perturbed by his wishes to attend to this   
uncharacteristic rudeness, Ororo finished making her bed. She   
summoned a tight rain for a quick shower. She dressed in the first   
things touched when she reached into her closet - a shirt that could   
have belonged to any of the larger X-men and ancient pants.   
Permitting herself a hasty breakfast, she plucked several finger-  
length bananas from the one bearing tree in her greenhouse; ate   
them on the way down to the War Room, pausing at the kitchen for   
some coffee. All the while her senses were opened for the evidence   
of the lives under her care. Thus she steeled herself for the hours   
she would spend deep underground, closed off from live scent,   
natural light, and fresh air.  
  
*  
  
In his bedroom, Charles Xavier turned his attention from Ororo   
and focused his awareness on the woman hurtling through the  
underbrush bordering the northeast edge of Graymalkin Lane.  
  
Her brilliant mind shone with innumerable facets but it was  
marred by terrible scar. Where the seat of her telepathy  
should have been was a terrible blankness, like a massive  
keloid. His lack of foresight had caused that scar but she  
had managed to fashion what remained of her psychic  
abilities into powerful shields that he could only breach  
with difficulty.  
  
Purpose rode her like a horse.  
  
She had to get to him and get him out of the mansion - post-haste.  
It was with his heart in his throat that Xavier sensed her stumble  
across the stream in shoes ill-suited for rough journeying and make  
her way to a free-stranding, scruff-strewn boulder. It contained a  
hidden opening to a dank, subterranean path. The path slanted to  
the shore of Breakstone Lake. He stayed with her as he hauled   
himself from his desk-chair to his hoverchair and she fastened a   
tiny breathing mask to her face. He watched over her as he directed   
his hoverchair to the space beside his bed, his breath catching with  
sympathetic shock as she dove into the freezing waters. He   
triggered open a hidden panel in his wall just as she found the lead   
wire leading to a specific spot on the lake-bottom, and hurled   
himself into to the drop-tube behind that panel as she swam into a   
hole screened by carefully molded rocks and water plants. He fell   
in darkness, breaking through a spiderweb. She crawled through   
chill depths of a watery tunnel and was caught in the gravity net in   
a manmade cavern deep beneath the mansion when her head broke   
the surface of the subterranean pool that cavern contained.  
  
"Tessa," he said from where he was sprawled beneath the  
drop tube.  
  
Gasping, she tore off the mask and crawled out of the water on  
hands knees, gaining the shore and resting only when she lurched  
to the computer bank set into the wall, lifting the clear lid on a red  
button and slamming her palm firmly against it, activating the   
cavern's defenses.  
  
Wheezing, she sank to the floor, the skin of her face squeaking as   
it dragged down the length of the cabinet. Her face was white, the  
tattoos beneath her eyes blacker than wet coal against her skin. Her  
lips were an flat-orchid. Water pooled beneath her.  
  
The professor pulled himself along the floor until he was beside   
her.  
  
"Who is it?" The professor asked, resting his hand on her wet  
head. "Whose measure are we taking?"  
  
"They call themselves the Neo," Tessa finally gasped. "And they  
are not benign."  
  
*  
  
As far as mutations went, Warren's did not convey wide-ranging  
offensive capabilities. At best, he could soar to the stratosphere  
and thus deprive a combatant of air, but short of murder (he could  
lift someone high into the air and drop them, rather how  
seagulls obtained clam suppers) he had only speed and agility to  
rely upon in a fight. When his vintage Lincoln had broken down,  
Warren had decided to walk to Bobby's house rather than  
take a Taxi into Manhattan because 1) Betsy had cancelled their  
date, 2) in the two weeks since he'd been absent from Xavier's  
school for gifted youngsters, he hadn't challenged his endurance  
and 3) he hadn't heard from Hank in ages and if anyone knew  
where Hank was, Bobby did.  
  
Normally, Warren avoided walking long distances. His preferred  
means of travel was winged flight. Walking to Bobby's house was  
more an exercise in discipline. And when the third semi to pass   
him splashed damp road grit onto him along with the choking   
backwash of dust he'd only recently learned to avoid by turning his   
head away, pride kept him on Nicholls Road North.  
  
Being Warren he nonetheless looked smug. This had as much to   
do innate grace as the image-inducer that hid his wings and  
disguised the blue of his skin. His tracksuit was still crisp; the   
splashes from the road fell on the red fabric in geometric streaks.   
His curling blond hair, which Betsy had cut only recently, was a   
study of unnatural-seeming perfection, despite having been   
repeatedly raked by grit laden gusts.  
  
Normally, Warren would have noticed three attackers converging  
on him. Two stalked him from the deep embankment beyond the  
road's shoulder; one fell towards him from the sky. His eyes  
were fixed on the distance as put one foot before the other.  
  
The call of the sky was echoing loud within him when a reek of  
dank stone and still water assailed his nostrils. Without thinking,  
Warren's wings beat furiously, driving him into the air. He barely  
got a glimpse of his two ground assailants before the net they  
launched at him bloomed to his right. In two beats of his wings he  
was high above them and tapping his X-Comm for help. Before he  
could realize that the communicator was dead, a whistling shriek  
warned him that a large was mass hurtling towards him.  
  
His attacker's feet were aimed at his back, and may have  
broken it had they connected, but Warren was fast, mercury-quick,  
and he dropped and dodged, taking the blow on his arm. His arm  
went numb and he flipped in the air, grappling with a foe who was  
as fast as him if not faster. They punched and hit, dodged and spun  
in the air. Elbows, thighs and arms collided, grunts and wheezes  
sounded and feathers rained. The man could fly and he was strong   
and fast, but in the air he was not Warren's match. Warren drove   
his shoulder into his assailant's midsection then landed a solid hit   
to his face. His assailant fell out of control, his grey-white hands  
glowing a pestilent yellow.  
  
Holding his wings close to his body to cut lift, Warren followed.   
He caught his assailant around his head and shoulders. The miasma   
of cave dweller - dead skin, deader eyes and the metallic reek of  
heavy ground water - was strong.  
  
A second net launched from below captured Warren and his   
assailant. Both dropped to the ground, the air shrieking around   
them as the ground reared up. Grounded, Warren was quickly   
overwhelmed.  
  
*  
  
Storm knew better than to wish that Scott were alive, but the low-  
ceilinged, narrow room, designed to comfortably seat two long-  
limbed persons, was unfriendly since his death. Her mouth  
twisted with humor only Scott would have appreciated, shared.  
"Had Betsy grown another limb and were still in the process of   
using it, we might see a clearer result. The professor has informed   
me that Betsy tends to tell her limbs to move a certain way. She   
craves flight. When she tells her feet to run harder, or her fists to   
punch she yells telepathically." Storm crooked her mouth and her  
expression gentled. "This only makes me thankful for my own  
natural shields."  
  
Looking to the chair beside her, the one which normally contained  
Scott, Ororo reached for her comm badge and tapped it. There was  
short series of chirps and she spoke: "Outside line, Betsy  
Braddock's cellular phone, 212 area code."  
  
There was a series of clicks but no open-line hum. Odd. It had   
been at least ten hours since her last telephone call to Betsy. In   
glancing at her timepiece to make sure of this, Ororo saw that she   
had been beneath the mansion too long for her comfort: the small   
hairs on her arm stood straight. The faintest crawling sensation   
resulted when she brought her fingertips to the skin of her arm. She  
studiously did not look upward.  
  
Deciding to give herself a break, Ororo stood.  
  
Whenever she had been down in the second subbasement  
anteroom with Scott, he made sure that she stayed only a  
little longer than their previous time there. Thanks to him,  
she could spend hours in the anteroom, focused on the X-Men  
and their progress, and not on the crush of stone and earth above  
her.  
  
It had been Scott's idea that Danger Room footage be viewed in  
the antechamber. Here she had no illusions that they were  
outdoors or in a wide open space. Her concentration, already  
formidable, usually served to distract her from where she was and   
her imagined vulnerability. Still, she did not relish being down in   
the subbasement more than she could help it.  
  
Betsy's outside line did not pick up. Tapping her comm badge,  
Ororo said, "Outside line, Warren Worthington - Manhattan  
residence." She powered down the monitors, exited the anteroom  
and approached the elevator doors. Her nostrils flared as she  
waited for the doors to open and she steeled herself as she  
entered and the lift. She began a stately ascent into the mansion  
to break her fast properly, but there was a series of horrible  
sounds as the power failed. The soothing, comforting whine  
of the Shiar powersinks and generators halted and she was  
plunged into crushing, silent, darkness.  
  
*  
  
Forge and Kitty were hunched over his computer monitor,  
studying an electronic schematic of the house power plans.  
The lines were glowing green when the first massive clunk  
of total power failure registered.  
  
"No!!!" Kitty wailed as Forge's computer powered down and  
darkness fell. There were fizzling chirps as each tried to activate  
their X-Coms. Calmly, Forge reached for the circular punch-light  
on the desk and tapped it. A feeble fluorescent glow threw their  
faces into harsh relief. He pulled a handheld unit from his pocket  
and activated it. On the small display, the schematic they'd been  
scrutinizing on the computer screen appeared.  
  
Kitty stepped away from Forge, reached to the wall behind the  
computer monitor and with a flip of a switch connected the  
computer to a dedicated power source. The computer monitor  
blinked on and the house plans they'd been studying re-appeared.  
To Kitty's disappointment and Forge's frustration, the powerlines  
were depicted in red.  
  
*  
  
Ororo's eyes opened their widest. A weird, vicious howling  
sound began as the air pressure in the elevator dropped. Electric  
arcs, purple, pink and white, crawled and flickered over her hands  
and face, snapping and crackling as Ororo beat at the door. Her  
eyes were glowing white and a rhythmic banging began as Ororo's  
terror manifested as fluctuating air pressure.  
  
Claustrophobia, worse than she'd experienced in a long time,  
threatened to take her mind away. By the feeble, eldritch light of  
her eyes and the St Elmo's fire she'd summoned, Ororo could  
barely see. Panic had her imagining that the elevator was rocking  
and groaning around her, but that was the motion of her own self-  
propelled body and her voice.  
  
There was a 'BAMF'. Sulfur-stink filled the elevator.  
  
"Ororo!" cried out Kurt, shielding his face as sparks shattered the  
air.  
  
"Kurt!!" Ororo screamed.  
  
His hard-muscled arms, densely velveted with short, comforting  
fuzz, fastened around her waist.  
  
She shut her eyes tight in anticipation of vertigo. They  
vanished in a sulfuric burst of air.  
  
*  
  
"We've got no power," Kitty observed.  
  
"This is very strange," Forge said, frowning more than usual at his  
handheld.  
  
"What is?" Kitty asked, tossing him a flashlight from under the  
desk. He caught it without removing his eyes from his handheld.  
  
"Well, according to that," he pointed to his computer, "we're  
completely offline."  
  
Kitty reached under her desk for the laptop computer she kept  
there. "But?" she asked.  
  
"There's a . . some kind of diagnostic running."  
  
"It's not your handheld interacting with your computer or some  
other auxiliary system kicking in? Mansion is riddled with 'em."   
She checked the batteries in her flashlight.  
  
"Hardly."  
  
She cocked her head, her hip, and her foot and waited. When he  
said nothing, "What, we're being scanned? The professor would  
know if we were under attack."  
  
Forge didn't answer.  
  
"And our auxiliaries do work when it comes to defense."  
  
"I need to concentrate," Forge muttered.  
  
"Professor?!" Kitty yelled, augmenting that with a mental shout.  
  
Forge sucked his teeth, pursed his lips.  
  
"Guess he's not here," Kitty said, turning on her laptop.  
  
Forge refrained from glaring.  
  
"I'm gonna go more hands on and check out what's going on with  
the powersinks. You gonna join me?" Kitty asked.  
  
He grunted.  
  
"That handheld is not gonna slow you down *too* much."  
  
He ignored her.  
  
Kitty wheeled on her heel, made a face, and hefting the flashlight  
into her palm, headed for the second subbasement.  
  
*  
  
"You're unhurt?" Xavier asked Tessa, who was shivering beside  
him. She stood tall, despite her obvious discomfort, her posture  
perfect.  
  
"Yes," she said eyes on the monitors depicting the quiet grounds.  
The infrared monitors revealed three humanoid shapes on the   
Institute  
grounds.  
  
"You took a great risk coming here."  
  
"My earlier attempts to alert you were unsuccessful. I surmised   
that the failsafes had been compromised."  
  
Xavier nodded. "Forge and Kitty have been reworking our  
mansions defenses."  
  
Tessa nodded. "How open are the intruders' minds to you?" she  
asked.  
  
"They're only testing us," Xavier said, his voice distant. "Assessing  
our defenses as you said.  
  
Tessa nodded.  
  
Xavier spoke again, "I sense great hostility but no intent to attack -  
at least today."  
  
"You only heard me just in time. The probability was high that  
they would attempt to take you captive were you in residence."  
  
"What else do you know?"  
  
"Only what I've told you: that they are old; that they have been  
hidden and seek to take our measure; that they are not benign."  
  
He nodded. "And so we wait." And they did, but not before he  
turned his awareness to the garage and motor pool.  
  
*  
Ororo and Kurt landed on the cold flagstones of the dark  
chapel. Frozen for a moment, Ororo beheld what little of Kurt  
hadn't melted with the shadows looked singed around the edges.  
His long sleeved tee-shirt, a deep purple, was burnt at the hem.  
The turpentine-stain laced carpenters pants he wore smoked.  
  
"Mein Gott," he gasped, his flame-yellow eyes blinking rapidly.  
"You almost gave me a heart-attack."  
  
"Never!" she gasped, and hurried over to him. Tightly, she   
embraced him and he hugged her back.  
  
"That was very dangerous what you did, my darling Elf," she said  
hoarsely.  
  
He chuckled and could not help but nod emphatically, but ever the  
gallant he said, "No risk is too great."  
  
"Thank you," she replied.  
  
They pulled away from one another and rose to their feet. Their  
hands remained linked as they walked down the aisle to the  
shut doors.  
  
"What made you come?" Ororo asked.  
  
"There was a terrible noise. I was sawing through some boards for  
the pews--" Kurt gestured at a carpenter's stand where boards were  
waiting to be sawn into pieces. Ororo released Kurt's hand and  
hurried to the extension cord, pulling it from the wall.  
  
He grinned, thanking her with a nod. "When the saw and the  
light I'd hung from the wall died, the silence was conspicuous.  
I teleported to the mansion foyer and called for anyone. No  
one came. Then I remembered that you were supposed to be in  
the War Room all day but when I teleported to there, I still  
couldn't find you. When I heard the disturbance in the  
elevator shaft, I guessed you were there."  
  
And panicking, Ororo thought. She said, "You should not have  
risked it. But I thank you."  
  
They each grasped a handle, shouldered the chapel doors open.  
Snow and leaves blew in from outside.  
  
By daylight, Kurt looked exhausted. His warm amber eyes were  
glassy and his cheeks sagged. The neat fuzz napping his skin had  
lost some of its sheen.  
  
"Thank you, my friend. You risked much for me."  
  
"Ach," Kurt demurred, "anything for a pretty girl."  
  
Chuckling despite herself, she slipped her arms around his waist  
and jumped. Her hands hooked beneath his arms as she caught  
the wind and they flew back to the mansion.  
  
Kitty met them at the garage, a bucket of used motor oil in her  
hands.  
  
"Katzchen," said Kurt, dropping from Ororo's hands to neatly land  
on the driveway. "What happened to the power?"  
  
Kitty shook her head. "It's probably a glitch but Forge is checking  
it out anyway. Though wouldn't that be a hoot if this was   
something prophesied in one of Destiny's journals?"  
  
Unconsciously, Ororo shook her head 'no'. Kurt blanched as much  
as was possible considering his skin color. "That was a joke,   
guys."  
  
"Those journals worry me," Ororo said.  
  
"And I as well," said Kurt. "Who else is at the mansion?"  
  
"Just us - Pete and Marrow took off earlier this morning for the  
naval yards and a car came for Professor 'bout a half hour ago.  
Oh, and Rogue went out to get us some lunch."  
  
"Piotr took Sarah out there again?" Kurt asked.  
  
Kitty shrugged. "Yeah. The girl really likes all that heavy rusting  
machinery. Especially the chains."  
  
"That can't give Peter much to paint that he likes, though."  
  
*  
  
In Port Jefferson, Long Island, Bobby preened under his mother's  
attentions, purring comically as she tinted his hair. She had the  
*best* hands.  
  
"Jesus God, Maddy," said Willie Drake, halting his wheelchair in   
the middle of his wife's kitchen with a sharp squeal of tires.   
Envelopes, flyers, and advertisements cascaded from his lap onto   
the floor. Maddy looked up from brushing dye onto a section of   
Bobby's brown hair. Bobby hunched under the drip-cape, clutching   
the egg timer he'd been fiddling with to his chest.  
  
"You gonna teach him to play with dolls, too?"  
  
Maddy pursed her lips, folded foil around the section of hair she'd  
been color-treating, and sniffed. Her expression curdled further as  
the stench of dye hammered her.  
  
Bobby started to stand but his mother's fist pressed into the meat  
of his shoulder, keeping him in his seat.  
  
Willie fixed mother and son with a withering stare. Maddy and  
Bobby glared back. Willy angrily spun one wheel of the chair,  
whirling in a tight arc, and trundled out of the kitchen the same  
way he'd come.  
  
Maddy tsked.  
  
"Can I get the mail now?" Bobby asked.  
  
Foil rustled as Maddy highlighted another section of his hair. Her  
fingers worked as quickly and surely as they had before Willy's  
interruption, but Bobby could sense her tension. Also, she was  
tapping her heel on the floor.  
  
"Mom?" he hazarded.  
  
"Let me get the rest of this in here and turn on the timer and then I  
can clean up your father's mess - like I've been doing for these past  
thirty years and more," she added under her breath.  
  
"Mom, are you - are you . . . ?"  
  
"Am I *what*, Bobby?" she snapped, setting aside her tint brush.  
  
Having an affair, he thought. "Happy?" he asked.  
  
She reached over his shoulder, grabbed the egg timer and  
wrenched the dial to the fifteen-minute mark. "Not at the moment,  
dear."  
  
"Mom," he began, twisting in his chair to face her.  
  
She looked up from the egg timer with a thoughtful expression.  
"Some horrible woman called for you the other day."  
  
Bobby's eyebrows almost met over his nose.  
  
Maddy's gaze sharpened, pinning him. "She has this hideous  
finishing-school, Northampton lock-jaw." Maddy swayed a little   
from side to side, a haughty sway. She spoke through barred teeth:   
"I haven't heard its like in years. Said she's your headmistress of all  
things."  
  
"Was her name Emma? Emma Frost?"  
  
Maddy nodded. "Yes, it was."  
  
"She's the headmistress of the Institute's sister school in  
Massachusetts."  
  
"Oh. Well, she's called for you a few times now."  
  
"And you're only telling me now!" Bobby yelled, then winced as   
he  
realized he sounded just like his father.  
  
"I just remembered now!" Maddy yelled back, her face flushing.  
"And in any case, you've been waiting on Henry McCoy's call, not  
some -" her face became petulant, "_Chippy_." Her snippy,  
condescending reply sounded way too much like his dad's acidity  
for Bobby's comfort.  
  
"I suppose you've been talking to Hank all this time but you   
haven't bothered to let me know he's called either."  
  
"Temper, Bobby." Maddy replied, then more gently. "I'd do no   
such thing. I'm as worried about him as you are. He was close to   
Scott too."  
  
The front door bell rang, playing Dixie of all things.  
  
Maddy's eyes widened in dismay at the tune. Bobby cringed.  
Maddy said, "That man!"  
  
Whereupon Willy bellowed loud enough to be heard in the kitchen,  
"Son!"  
  
*  
  
Forge stood before the double doors to Professor Xavier's suite, a  
datadisk in his hand. His breath came in short pants and his mouth  
was clenched. He raised his hand to pound on the door but a  
sudden spurt of rage moved him to duck his chin.  
  
The doors opened with a sudden whoosh, revealing Storm in  
disheveled glory. Printer ink smudged her cheek and nose. Her  
shirt, an over-large, much used chambray one was very similar to  
his, down to the blue ink stains on the front pocket seam. It had  
been buttoned out of order. Her frayed cargo pants were dirt  
stained at the knees and thighs.  
  
She also carried a manila file folder.  
  
Forge colored dramatically, his skin purpled with rushing blood.   
Her blue eyes widened with blank surprise. Anger looked strange   
on him - at least, it did not suit him.  
  
With a slight toss of her head, she shook off her surprise. "Forge."  
  
Silenced by the notion that the shirt she wore had once been his,  
he could only nod.  
  
She took a deep, quick breath. "Have you seen the Professor?"  
  
He opened his mouth to reply but she spoke out of turn. "Of course  
not. You are looking for him. Obviously, he is not here."  
  
Forge backed away. Stepping over the threshold, she closed the  
doors behind her.  
  
He scowled. Or rather, his brow furrowed and lowered and the   
wing of his jaw surged and twitched.  
  
Resisting the urge to soothe that tic with her hand, she managed a  
tight-lipped smile at Forge before striding away from him.  
  
In a breath, Forge took three steps in her direction and reached for  
her arm.  
  
She whirled on him, keeping her arm well out of his reach.  
  
The liquid black of his eyes shone and his voice was low with  
intent, "We need to talk."  
  
Reflexively, she shook her head no.  
  
The brilliance of his gaze dimmed. "It's business, Ororo."  
  
"Then you would do well to conduct yourself accordingly," she   
said severely. The weary affront this evoked shamed her and she  
relented. Her voice husky, she said, "Is this regarding the  
satellite communications mishap? Or today's power failure?"  
  
"Both are related."  
  
She tapped the file she held against her warding hand, the one  
she'd raised when he'd tried to grab her. "You are welcome to a  
copy of this incident report. Most of the pertinent information is  
included. Should you have any questions, you need only  
forward them to Katherine - Kitty."  
  
Additional lines wrinkled across his forehead. "Downed satellites  
are the least of our worries. I think I found something about the  
mansion's power source. I could use the original consultant's input  
and I hoped I could be put in contact with him."  
  
"Cable rebuilt the mansion but he is away indefinitely."  
  
"Right." Forge's face was thoughtful.  
  
Suddenly, she felt his fingers brush her shirt - his shirt - her shirt  
and he slipped the data-disk into her pocket. It was a casual  
gesture, but her inner control slipped its moorings, sliding the   
length of her body to pool heavy between her legs.  
  
A hint of ozone buzzed in the air.  
  
"We need to talk." He patted his pocket significantly.  
  
Ororo nodded. She and Forge parted ways. She started for the  
Professor's labs, her fingertips at her lips. Her pulse had yet to  
return to normal when she turned a hallway and almost ran into  
Rogue.  
  
Rogue caught Storm's shoulder with one gloved hand, holding her  
at bay and neatly preventing a collision. "You in some kind of  
hurry?"  
  
Storm brushed Rogue's hand from her shoulder with more patience  
than she had shown Forge. "Forgive me. I did not see you."  
  
Rogue nodded, folding her arms. "You okay?"  
  
"Or course," Storm replied, but noticed then that Rogue looked  
dubious. "Considering," Storm added. "Have you seen the  
Professor?"  
  
Rogue raked her full bottom lip with her upper teeth. "Not since  
this morning. He was gone when I came back with lunch."  
  
Storm's head tilted. Her mouth stilled. "He insisted that I have this  
report ready for him today." She looked at the wall bordering  
Xavier's room and shook her head. "He should have informed me  
that he was leaving."  
  
Rogue smiled sourly in sympathy. "Yeah, least he coulda done."  
  
Rogue then tilted her head at Storm and bit on her inner cheek.  
"Speaking of neglectin' to say goodbye, you know when Gambit  
took off? He say goodbye to you?"  
  
If the question was meant as consolation for her embarrassing  
ignorance of Xavier's whereabouts, Ororo thought it was a noble  
effort. She chose her words carefully. "I believe Remy left us two  
days after Jean did."  
  
"Mm-hmm," Rogue hummed as if to say, 'Thought so.' Her skin  
was flushed and her full lips were thinning as Ororo watched.   
"And when's he comin' back?"  
  
Reflexively, Ororo shrugged, touching her hands to her chest and  
dipping her hands gracefully towards, Rogue. The placating  
gesture was one she had seen Egyptian shopkeeper after street-  
vendor after taxi-driver use to deflect the heat of misplaced anger.  
Part of her was surprised that her body made it and that it worked.  
"I know no more than you."  
  
Rogue was twisting her hand around her thumb. "No?" She  
sounded hopeful.  
  
Storm raised her hand to her forehead. Her spread fingertips  
grazed her hairline as she mastered the urge to flee.  
  
"I'm sorry to bother you about this. It's just, you an' Gambit are so  
close an', I figured you'd know where was. I shouldn't bother you."  
  
"I had been meaning to see you regarding something that is  
unrelated to your relationship with Gambit . . ."  
  
Abashed, Rogue laughed. "What can Ah do for you, 'Roro?"  
  
"What exactly happened on the night that the Harrisblite satellite  
was damaged?"  
  
"Ah shoulda filed a report. Ah, Ah don't know what Ah was  
thinking."  
  
"True, but we had recently buried Scott. Will you sit with me and  
tell me what happened?"  
  
Rogue clasped her hands in thanks and shook them at Ororo.  
"Lemme run down to the chapel and tell Kurt Ah won't be helpin'  
him with the pews. An' then I'm all yours." She started down the  
hall towards a window. "Take me two shakes."  
  
"Could you not use your X-Com?"  
  
"Mine's broken too," Rogue said, working the stuck window latch  
delicately. "Meet you where? Your attic?"  
  
Ororo nodded. "Should I help you with the latch? It might be   
painted shut."  
  
"Nah." Rogue grinned when she tripped the latch. Storm stifled a  
wince as Rogue shoved open the window. Cold, dry air flooded the  
hall, making her nostrils itch. Storm couldn't stifle another wince  
when Rogue stepped onto the white windowsill and it creaked  
under the weight of her foot.  
  
Rogue grabbed the top of the window frame. "Lock up?" she said  
over her shoulder.  
  
"Of course," Storm replied.  
  
Rogue jumped out of the second story window, leaving a dirty boot  
print on the windowsill. Wiping off the boot print with the hem of   
her shirt, Ororo watched Rogue turn a tight right rather than fall to   
the ground. There was hardly any snow on the ground, rather, hard  
packed dirt and dead grass. Storm closed and locked the window  
with much more exertion than Rogue had used.  
  
*  
  
"Does that hurt, dear?" Maddy asked, swabbing a long scrape on  
Warren's deeply sculpted, light-blue arm.  
  
"Not at all." Warren grinned thinly.  
  
"You sure? You *are* holding your breath," she stage-whispered.  
  
"Okay, a little," Warren stage-whispered back.  
  
Bobby had an uncharitable thought. He almost kicked himself for   
it until he looked over at his father who, as usual, sat in his  
wheelchair. Bobby hated that chair. What he hated even more that  
his dad had turned gray and was looking over a rifle with hard-  
eyed focus.  
  
"I hate to say this," Bobby broke in. "Do you think they followed   
you here?"  
  
"They took my attachÃ©-case and ran," Warren replied, speaking  
over Maddy's shoulder.  
  
"Doesn't mean they didn't follow you."  
  
There was a klick ca-chick as Willy loaded the rifle. It wouldn't  
be any good if the Friends of Humanity showed up at the door. Or  
Sentinels disguised as cops.  
  
"They didn't follow me."  
  
"Sure, because your busted image-inducer hid your wings and blue  
skin *so* well."  
  
"Bobby," Maddy said mildly. "Lower your voice."  
  
Bobby ignored her, still training his eyes on Warren's. He aimed   
his thumb at his father, his jaw mulish. "Your wings are workin',   
aren't they? You could have flown away, called for back-up."  
  
He turned away from Warren and his mom.  
  
"Cops'll be here any minute. They'll take your report, son," he said  
to Warren. "Bobby: get my other gun."  
  
*  
  
Ororo glanced into Xavier's office. It seemed to be whispering to  
her, which while not entirely sane, was not unpleasant. Memories.  
Not all hers, but some were, and each room had a different set.  
  
The photograph on the mantelpiece of the fireplace was of Jean  
and Scott's wedding day. They had been caught unawares. Jean  
was resplendent in her shining wedding gown. Storm had secretly  
disliked its design, but Jean had made the garish satin beautiful.  
Jean only had eyes for Scott. She was lifting a wave of sun-  
streaked red hair from her eyes with the help of the breeze: the   
better to see him . . .Uncharacteristically, Scott looked happy:   
surprised and relaxed, ecstatic and weary.  
  
Once, Storm had known what that look felt like, and had seen it  
reflected in another's face.  
  
Tenderly, Ororo touched the glass covering the photo. She  
replaced the photo on the mantelpiece and placed the completed  
report upon Charles' desk with a sticky note identifying it as such.  
  
Framed photographs of other affiliates; students and instructors,  
past and present, graced the wall to her right. There was one of  
Forge and the rest of X-Factor: taken when he was X-Factor's  
government liaison, prior to his assumption of the team's  
leadership. Immense Guido and light-hearted Jamie Madrox  
- the Multiple Man - beamed at her. Scott's brother, Alex of the   
sun-bright hair and open mien; far more temperamental than his  
brother, his moods and thoughts had chased each other across his  
face like the clouds tore across the skies of the Outback. He stood  
beside his heart, Lorna Dane. She and Alex had been lovers  
longer than Ororo had been in X-men and he was long lost to them  
but death hadn't altered Lorna's devotion.  
  
Alex was missing from the next photo, which was of X-Factor.  
Ororo's gaze lingered on Forge, searching for any sign that he had  
regretted withdrawing his offer of marriage. This photo never  
failed to rouse emotions better left unattended and the windows  
shook with the force of the wind battering them from outside and  
the sky fluoresced white-blue with lightning. The X-Men were all  
about second chances, and their affiliates had taken that philosophy  
to heart: so vile Sabretooth was in the photo in addition to another  
feral, Wildchild. Shard, a time-traveler, sister to Bishop, was also  
present.  
  
There was a third woman, someone Storm did not know. She was  
dark of hair and eyes. The cast of her features reminded Storm of  
the great ladies of the Garden District of Cairo. The gaze behind  
her dark-framed glasses was hard. She had a lush mouth and  
elegant features but there was a coldness to her that denied true  
beauty. Then Storm realized she was gazing at the shapeshifter  
Mystique. Ororo's expression curdled and she turned away from  
the portrait with hooded eyes.  
  
She drifted down the hall towards the staircase, haunted by sense  
memories. Of quiet laughter and proud sighs that accompanied the  
Professor and Forge when played chess. The two extremely  
intelligent men, so pleased to be able to play a game without  
seeming childish - though the delight they took in checkmating   
each other rivaled that of any five-year old's at winning a game.   
Jubilee rollerblading down the hall despite being told, time and   
time again, not to. Or maybe, upon reflection, *because* she was   
told time and time again not to. Rogue, propelled by a kinetically   
charged basketball, crashing through the wall. Or so she had heard,   
and the giant hole in the wall had seemed to indicate that Jubilee   
had not exaggerated. The paint beneath Storm's fingertips was   
slightly darker than that on the rest of the wall, the paint of the   
repair less than a perfect match to the undamaged portions.  
  
The memories distracted her from the silence that was only  
briefly relieved by gusts of wind as heard wreathing the eaves.  
She mounted the stairs toward her attic passing the windows  
overlooking the empty basketball court. The court should  
have been echoing with cat-calls and the squeak of court shoes.  
Now the wind whistled and wailed while dead leaves chased  
circles around one another.  
  
A voice made her pause on the stairs. She turned around to see  
Kitty. In the then, Kitty had been a small, gracile creature, a  
dancer, ingenuously telling Storm that she had never seen anybody  
like her before. Her young girl eagerness had made the simple  
words into an extremely gratifying compliment.  
  
"Ororo?"  
  
Storm blinked away the young girl in her mind's eye and focused   
on the young woman standing at the bottom of the stairs. "Yes,  
Katherine?"  
  
"Could you spare a minute?"  
  
"Whatever for?"  
  
"I was hoping we could try the new communicators out in some  
adverse weather conditions, and the equipment we have can only  
simulate so much."  
  
"Where you not working with Forge on the power systems?"  
  
"He got a bug up his butt and I decided to do something about our  
comms since this afternoon's power glitch fried them all."  
  
Storm stepped down a few steps. "Is the Danger Room  
malfunctioning?"  
  
"Oh, God, no. Then we'd really be screwed, Cable being so scarce  
and all. Naw, it's just occupied right now, and would you be so   
good as to summon us up a storm for us?"  
  
Storm started back down the stairs. "I will see what I can do."  
  
Rogue, dressed in bright yellow, form-fitting coveralls, was   
waiting in the entrance hall for them. Her green eyes lit up at the   
sight of them. Smiling with preoccupied warmth, Rogue hugged   
her elbows and raised an eyebrow at Storm. Storm tilted her head,   
wondering if she looked particularly mournful. With a glance and a   
slight nod, Storm reassured Rogue that all was well. Rogue sighed,   
her green eyes twinkling, and she draped an arm over Katherine's   
slight shoulders, a bounce in her step.  
  
When new to the team, Rogue had been trusted by no one,  
mistrusting everyone. But she had tried so hard. She had been  
valiant in her efforts to make amends for past crimes and to  
ingratiate herself with her former enemies. Rogue's hair had been  
worn short and close to her head. Though all of eighteen, Rogue's  
eyes had been as flat as marble. Lines had bracketed her mouth  
from constant frowning. Rogue had worn green and white, then,  
the colors she made notorious while an enemy of the X-Men and  
the Federal Government. Storm preferred the green, but nobody  
asked her about these things.  
  
"Storm, boss, ya gotta pay attention." The image of the memory-  
Rogue vanished before Rogue's amused voice and snapping  
fingers. She beamed, her smile taking up almost all of her face.  
"Ah don't want ya zappin' me while Ah'm up there."  
  
"I was under the impression that you enjoyed that."  
  
"I'll take my thrills where I can get 'em but I admit it's hell on my  
hair. If you can figure out a way to make call lightning that doesn't  
make my hair all frizzy -"  
  
Ororo chuckled. "Next you will be asking me to make small,  
*friendly* lightning bolts."  
  
"If you could make them small..." began Kitty, but stopped at an  
exasperated look from Storm.  
  
They went outside, and walked to area of the grounds chosen for  
the experiment, though Storm doubted her ability to keep a  
thunderstorm so contained that it would not spread to the whole of  
the grounds.  
  
Even that would be tiny.  
  
"Colossus has one inside the mansion, too. These things are heavy  
duty - distance is no problem - but I'm not sure how they're gonna  
respond to nearby electrical interference."  
  
Rogue nodded. "And if the X-Men are gonna be using 'em, they  
need to work while whoever's got them is dodging lightning bolts."  
  
Storm nodded absently, closed her eyes, and let her heart reach for  
the skies.  
  
Droplets of water evaporated against the heat of her skin.  
  
"Um, that's a start," Rogue said after what must have been close to  
three minutes. "Though I was kinda hopin' that 'frizz' could be  
avoided," she added under her breath.  
  
Storm opened her eyes and looked distastefully at the drizzle  
she had created.  
  
"I guess conditions aren't conducive to creating a thunderstorm,"  
said Kitty. "That's all right. We'll try again later."  
  
Storm tightened her lips at the patronization she sensed in their  
voices. "Give me a moment."  
  
Rogue raised her arms and plunged upwards into the air. Her flight  
raised a breeze stronger than anything Storm had managed to call.  
  
A little time passed. It felt like a lot of time. Each additional  
lightning-less second was an embarrassment, though she knew it  
should not have been.  
  
Her tongue touched her lower lip. Her eyes remained placidly   
closed. The drizzle began to coat her face. Raindrops began to   
weigh down her hair, but she longed to stomp and raise thunder   
with her steps. She wanted to scream hail onto the earth. She   
wanted to go up there and squeeze the clouds until they yielded   
rain like rivers.  
  
The rain began to fall, fast and hard. There was a distant rumble,  
and then a louder, closer one.  
  
She opened her eyes to rain that would have blinded most - even  
her X-Men. Kitty was soaked to the proverbial bone. Her hair was  
plastered to her skin. Rainwater dribbled over the planes of her  
face and dripped from her chin.  
  
"As you wished," she said to Kitty. "May it suffice."  
  
She walked away, but she didn't go inside. Instead, she sat down  
on the porch and watched the lightning and rain, and tried to forget  
that, for a quarter of an hour, the skies had completely ignored her.  
  
-0- 


End file.
